


(this ain't the) wild wild west

by stupidwolves



Category: Bleach
Genre: Asexual!Grimmjow, Asexual!Ichigo, Asexuality, Borderlands AU, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, M/M, Road Trip, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidwolves/pseuds/stupidwolves
Summary: This tale ends, not unlike others similar to this one, with a treasure found by a couple of vault hunters, a siren, a mechanic, a silent bartender, and a waitress training to be a doctor. However, it is important to take note it’s not the treasure itself that matters the most.But we’ll get there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> whoa okay hi hello, this will be my 1st chaptered fic here in ao3, pls be gentle with me lmao

This tale ends, not unlike others similar to this one, with a treasure found by a couple of vault hunters, a siren, a mechanic, a silent bartender, and a waitress training to be a doctor. However, it is important to take note it’s not the treasure itself that matters the most.

 

But we’ll get there.

 

**I.**

 

It starts with a broken robotic arm and a frantic siren carrying an almost unconscious vault hunter through the less used streets of Sanctuary.

 

“Come on, Grimmjow, you have to help me here,” Nel grits out, trying to find a position that’s more comfortable for both of them as she looks for a place, _any_ place really, they could break in and rest. “You’re not exactly light, you know.”

 

Grimmjow grunts; it’s the first and last response she gets from him until the next day. She shakes her head, not surprised by his lack of effort, and keeps shifting her eyes from one building to another, ignoring the loud pounding in her chest.

 

“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me, you _idiot_ ,” she mutters, though it's more for her sake than his. Grimmjow’s arm twitches, and sparks fly, thankfully, away from them.

 

Nel walks as quickly as he’s able to, still trying to find an entrance, a broken window, a conveniently unlocked door, a small gap in an alley somewhere, anywhere they can rest – _hide_. Absentmindedly, she brings her free hand inside the jacket, touches the weight in her pocket and swallows hard, praying silently for some luck in this moment.

 

Their feet – their _everywhere_ , actually – hurt, the water is practically gone and the last time they ate – when exactly was it? It’s worrisome, really, but right now she can’t afford to waste time to think about it.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices it: a slightly open window practically _calling_ for them.

 

There’s a closed dumpster right beneath it, and she lifts Grimmjow up before she jumps on it. One hand on the window, she pushes the glass only to find out it won’t budge. Cursing, she looks inside before turning to the vault hunter.

 

“Grimmjow,” Nel hisses, then shakes him a little when no response comes. A small grunt is all she gets, and is more than enough for now. “I’ll have to phasewalk us inside.”

 

**II.**

The tale also starts with a semi-crowded bar, not all that far from the place the siren and the vault hunter crashed.

 

Even though the place is close to being full, the patrons’ conversations are quiet enough to be just a buzzing sound to Ichigo’s ears. Taking a sip of his drink, he turns around on his stool to scan the crowd, not looking for anyone in particular.

 

“So how’s the shop going, sweetie?” a voice purrs on his ear and makes him jump on his seat, and he turns around with a scowl that only makes Rangiku laugh. “Drop the frown, honey; it’s not a good look on you.”

 

He moves back as she leans in, her arms resting on the counter. “Seriously, though, how have you been? I can’t remember the last time you came over to my humble bar and sat down to have a drink or two.”

 

Ichigo softens his expression, a small smile on his face as he looks down and rubs his thumb over the glass.

 

“The shop is – it’s been good, really. Kind of slow for my liking sometimes, but it’s not like most people here have a bunch of guns or robots for me to fix,” he takes another sip, notices Chad mixing a drink for someone out of the corner of his eye and grins. Turning his attention back to the owner, he continues. “Mostly it’s dad’s clinic next door that has more movement, actually. So, since I have the time, I’ve been making some robot prototypes and mods for practice.”

 

At the end of his sentence, her eyes are shining with interest and the corners of her lips turn upwards after they’ve been down, looking incredibly similar to a scowl, at the mention of many people needing medical care. She bets most of them are innocent civilians caught in the fight between Hyperion and the rebels.

 

“That’s pretty cool!” she rests her head on one hand, pushing her body up the counter as Ichigo’s face turns slightly red from the attention. “Planning on selling them some day?”

 

“No idea,” Ichigo shrugs, though he seems to consider it. “So, Rangiku, what have I missed since the last time I came by?”

 

“Oh, just the usual, boring stuff, you know,” she waves a hand dismissively, but the glint in her eyes betrays her.

 

He lifts one eyebrow; she smirks, all cat-like. He narrows his eyes; she rests her head on both hands. He crosses his arms; she wiggles her eyebrows. He exhales, loudly; she wins.

 

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he finishes his drink and Rangiku promptly gives him another. “What’s the usual, boring stuff?”

 

“Well,” she drawls out, looking at the nails on her right hand before continuing. “These past couple of weeks there’s been, well, _talks_.”

 

“ _Talks_ ,” he repeats, frowning. “What kind of talks?”

 

“You know, the _vault hunter_ kind of talk,” she says between her teeth, looking at both sides before continuing. “Actually, to be more specific, the vault _key_ kind of talk.”

 

“Oh? What about it?” he tries to sound uninterested, but Rangiku knows that it got his attention. She has yet to meet a person that claims not to care about the vault hunter business and actually mean it.

 

“You probably already know about the vault Hyperion found, right?” she waits for him to nod before continuing. “Well, the talk I’ve heard is that Mr. Devil Corps CEO is desperate enough to hire _outside help_ now that the only part of the key he had was stolen.”

 

“Who would be stupid enough to rob from _Hyperion_?” Ichigo shakes his head slightly and looks at her. “Actually, I don’t even know whether to call them stupid or brave. Suicidal, maybe?”

 

“Let me tell you the best part!” Rangiku slaps his shoulder, ignoring the surprised yelp. “Both thieves work – well, I guess work _ed_ is the right way to call it now – at Hyperion.”

 

“That gossip again?” Ichigo looks up, not startled at all by Chad’s sudden presence, unlike Rangiku, who puts a hand over her chest and almost screams.

 

“Chad!” Ichigo smiles and the man nods and gives him a smile of his own. “Man, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you! You should come visit us more often, Karin and Yuzu miss you. And Karin’s been complaining that you don’t have time to teach her boxing anymore; she’s probably a _little_ upset with you.”

 

“Hmm,” he pauses, looks at the glass he’s cleaning and considers Ichigo’s words. His head turns up and he nods. “Work’s been tough, but I can go over on Sunday.”

 

“Please don’t complain about your job in front of your boss,” Rangiku says, face stern, and Chad mumbles an apology. She laughs, patting him on the arm. “I’m just kidding, sweetie. You work hard and I appreciate it, so talk shit all you want.”

 

Before Ichigo can open his mouth, K0n’s shrill voice fills his ears and he winces. Letting the CL4P-TP unit have access through his ECHO device was a bad, _bad_ idea, no matter what Urahara says. Worst gift the man has ever given to him so far.

 

“Ichigo!” K0n screams; Chad and Rangiku look at him with concern. “You gotta get back to the shop right now!”

 

Ichigo snorts, rubs a hand all over his face and mouths _K0n_ to the other two. Chad still looks concerned, but Rangiku shrugs and walks over to attend to a patron.

 

“Stop screaming,” he snaps, looks at Chad for help and the man shakes his head, regretful.

 

 _Nothing I can do to help, sorry_. Ichigo sighs and smiles at his friend to reassure him it’s okay.

 

Meanwhile, K0n still hasn’t stopped talking, and if he wasn’t programmed to have the only one tone of voice Ichigo would swear the robot is starting to sound gradually more frightened.

 

“Hey, are you listening to me? Slow down a little, jeez,” he frowns, yet he’s already getting up and searching for his wallet. “And _stop screaming_.”

 

The feed cuts off.

 

Ichigo frowns, eyes not focused on anything in particular.

 

“Ichigo?” Chad calls, but he’s too far away, reaching for the door with long strides.

 

**III.**

What no one tells you about phasewalking is how much of a pain in the ass the after effects are.

 

Nel puts Grimmjow on the floor before collapsing on it herself. She breathe slowly – in and out, in and out –, trying to gather enough strength to scavenge the place for anything useful. She looks around first, since she can’t get up yet, taking in everything she can.

 

It’s not too dark outside yet, the night shyly rising to take its place on the sky, so the little light the room they’re in is all she could’ve asked for at this point.

 

There are tools for – what Nel supposes – heavy work, a little far away from the smaller ones used for simple tasks. A few dismantled guns lay on the work table, and she notices a small shelf filled with others. She tilts her head, wondering if they are usable and if ammo is available in the place she now guesses is a repair shop.

 

Breathing normally, Nel stands up and slowly makes her way towards the shelf. As she passes by the work bench, her eyes catch the sight of two portraits. She stops, curiosity getting the best of her, steps closer to get a better look. There are five people in the picture – two women, two men and a teenage girl –, all of them with big smiles on their faces. All of them have dirt covering some spot on their faces – cheeks, forehead, nose, you name it – and the girl stands right in the middle, raising a chest with a symbol carved on it proudly.

 

Nel has seen the symbol before, back at Hyperion. The circle with a letter resembling ‘A’ inside was on a map she saw in the director’s office. She shakes her head and focus back on the other people in the picture; the women are hugging each other by the shoulder, one of the men has a hand on top of the teenager’s head while the other pulls the other man into the frame.

 

The second picture shows one of the women from the other one, grinning wildly while holding a shotgun, back-to-back with a silly looking man posing with a sniper rifle. They’re staring at each other’s eyes rather than at the camera, and the glint of excitement from both was caught in the shot.

 

There’s no one there that she can recognize from either picture and, berating herself – because really, why does she keep getting her hopes up when she’ll never have all the memories of her past back? –, Nel starts walking again.

 

She’s clutching her stomach tightly, worried about vomiting. It happened only twice, one when she was young and couldn’t control her powers properly, but it stuck to her forever – one of the few things that did –, the memory burned in the back of her brain that would come back to her any time she overused her powers.

 

The second one was too recent to let herself deliberately think about it.

 

The other thing about phasewalking after effects no one tells you about is those few minutes where your senses don’t work so well, and enemies are free to sneak up on you.

 

Well, maybe that was just her, actually. The only other siren she met never had that problem – though the other one _is_ the strongest siren alive right now, so Nel isn’t sure she should compare herself to the woman.

 

Fact is, she doesn’t notice the CL4P-TP unit underneath the work table, hidden just so it could both watch whoever walked through the front door and to escape, if needed.

 

The whirling sound of its wheels draw Nel’s attention, but it was already running away, jumping up the stairs and her powers weren’t back at a decent strength yet. She growled, forcing herself to walk faster, to climb the stairs, to reach the door where the most amount of noise was being made.

 

It took too long for that, and the robot was already calling the owner of the shop, probably. She wished it was that option instead of whatever the equivalent of the police they had in Sanctuary.

 

She opens the door forcefully, earning a yelp from the CL4P-TP and then blocks his way. Breathing in slowly once more, she tackles the unit to the floor, the thing still trying to communicate with whoever was on the other side of the line.

 

Nel manages to conjure up the smallest amount of power to fry the robot’s circuit, and she grins when the telling sound of a CL4P-TP unit shutting down reaches her ears.

 

She doesn’t run down the stairs to get to Grimmjow, but she forces herself to get to him as quickly as she can manage, only stopping in front of the shelf to grab a random gun. She hopes it’s a usable one, with bullets in it. Sitting – _falling_ – next to the vault hunter, she checks the weapon and sighs, relieved.

 

Right now, they’re practically sitting ducks, and with one of them out cold, Nel doesn’t like their chances. Thinking of the robot upstairs, she closes her eyes and hopes no one will come over to check what’s wrong – it’s just wishful thinking, she knows, but can’t help but want a good thing to happen on the shitty week they’ve had.

 

A click of something being unlocked makes her groan and she pulls Grimmjow to the side, where whoever is coming in won’t notice him right away. Raising the gun, Nel tries to ignore the way her hands are trembling, ready to shoot if necessary.


	2. Chapter 2

**IV.**

Ichigo pulls out the gun from his back pocket with one hand while unlocking the door with the other. Personally, he’s not a big fan of using them, no matter how many he’s fixed and modified by now, but he’s also not naïve enough to think he doesn’t need one in a place like Pandora. He doesn’t shift the safety off, but does keep his thumb next to it in case he needs to do it.

 

The door opens, Ichigo carefully scans the place and quickly notices a person on the floor, sitting on her knees next to his work table and holding a gun, _his client’s gun_ , raised and pointed at him. He scowls, lifting his own gun to her, and step by step gets closer to her. He can’t see much, thanks both to the fact he forgot to turn the lights on and the way her face is partially hidden by a hood.

 

What he does notice is how she’s gritting her teeth and her frantic breathing, the way her hands shake and how the safety isn’t off yet. She looks more like a cornered, scared animal than a threat, and Ichigo can’t bring himself to hurt someone who looks like that. Closing his eyes for a second and sighing, he drops the arm holding the gun and crouches in front of her, eyes close to the wrong end of a gun but he’s willing to bet she won’t shoot if he doesn’t try to do anything suspicious.

 

“So,” he gulps and goes for a smile – it’s a weak one, but he can’t do better than that in the current situation. “What’s your name?”

 

For a second she looks startled, the grip on the gun faltering a little, but as quickly as the expression comes it goes away, leaving only a calculative stare. Ichigo wants to chuckle, but a death wish is the last thing he has, especially in this moment, so he tries again.

 

“It’s okay, you can tell me. I would tell mine first, but you did break into my shop,” he looks as she narrows her eyes, grip on the weapon tighter now, and he lifts both his hands, showing his own gun in a way he hopes she sees as nonthreatening. “So I guess the polite thing to do is at least give me that, you know.”

 

Slowly, she lowers her gun, and Ichigo can practically hear the train of thoughts that’s happening in her mind. Her eyes are still narrowed; head tilted slightly to the side, and if he wasn’t paying attention to her he definitely wouldn’t have notice the glance to her right. He doesn’t follow her gaze – though he wants to, very much so – and waits for her to say anything.

 

She mutters something and Ichigo frowns, not quite understanding her words. He doesn’t leans in closer to her, but he does strain his ears before asking her to repeat herself.

 

“Nelliel,” she huffs, gun still on her hands but now Ichigo is sure she’s just holding on to it out of habit rather than complete distrust of him. “That’s my name – Nelliel.”

 

“Nelliel,” he repeats, trying another smile – this time a more sincere one, thankfully. “Okay, cool. I’m Ichigo, by the way. Wish I could say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but, you know, the situation isn’t the most ideal for that.”

 

She doesn’t exactly flinches, per se, but she does look a little ashamed of her actions for a moment before she schools her expression to a neutral one. With his free hand, Ichigo scratches the back of his head, unsure on what to do next. By all means, he should be calling the police, or at the very least throwing her out of his workplace. Except she’s injured, from what he can see, and they’ve just exchanged names, which makes him feel like he needs to at least let her explain herself before making any type of decision.

 

“Can you, uh,” he hesitates, hand now resting on the back of his neck. “Can you tell me why did you do that? Break into my place, I mean.”

 

He watches as Nelliel bites her lips and concentrates, eyebrows knitted close to one another. Most likely figuring out what she could tell him and what he didn’t need to know, which should insult him considering he’s the offended party here, but he’s too tired to worry about that right now.

 

“We ran into a bunch of psychos on the way to Sanctuary, got hurt and needed a place to crash before continuing with our business,” she says, slowly, as if she wanted to take every word out of her mouth back.

 

Ichigo nods, understanding her reasoning better. Except–

 

“Wait, who’s ‘we’?” he looks around, panicked, and finally notices the body laying not that far away from them.

 

He curses inwardly, chastising himself for not seeing the other person earlier. Taking a better look, it’s obvious the other is either sleeping or passed out – and right now Ichigo doesn’t think there’s a great distinction between those two.

 

“Is your friend okay?” he winces at the sight of Nel’s raised eyebrow. “Right, of course not. I suppose they took the worst of it?”

 

Nelliel nods, the corner of her lips turning downwards as she looks at her companion.

 

“He–” shaking her head, she turns back to Ichigo. “Grimmjow is an idiot, thought he could take three psychos all by himself because he thought I needed time to – because he thought I couldn’t do it.”

 

 _Time to what_ is the question at the tip of his tongue, but if she made the effort to correct herself he’s not gonna press her further, not when she still has a gun on her hand, a client’s heavily modified gun that could put him on fire. He sighs.

 

“Okay, so here’s what I’m gonna do,” he pulls himself up, free hand open to help her up, which she takes after a couple second of hesitation. He puts his own gun back where it was and looks at Nelliel’s friend.

 

Ichigo walks up to the other injured person in the room and puts the man’s left arm over his shoulder, carrying him as he slowly walks up the stair, Nelliel coming right after him. He frowns, noticing how solid the arm he’s holding is, and while he’s got a good guess why, he’s not stopping now to ask.

 

“There’s a friend of mine that’s probably still working right next door with my dad and if they’re not too busy she can patch you two up in no time. You two can stay the night and rest, and leave tomorrow’s problems to, well, _tomorrow_.”

 

He stops at the top, free hand almost at the doorknob when he hesitates, brings it back and turns to Nelliel, reaching towards her with the palm up.

 

“Also, I’ll take that,” he smiles in the most reassuring way he can, and she complies, handing him the gun. “Thanks. The clinic isn’t the best place to be flashing guns around, since most people come here because they some way or another they ended up on the wrong side of one of them.”

 

The sound of Nel’s chuckles takes him by surprise, but he grins at her anyway.

 

“Yeah, I guess scaring the patients isn’t the smartest thing to do,” she smirks and raises an arm at the door’s direction. “After you.”

 

Ichigo rolls his eyes, smile still on his face, and guides her through the hall. At the sight of an open door, he stops, raises an eyebrow, frowns. Throwing a questioning look back at Nel, he gets closer to investigate. He looks at the floor, where K0n lies, deactivated, and snorts.

 

“You gotta teach me how to make him shut up like that,” he looks back at her, laughing at her confused face. “After you two are all fixed up, of course.”

 

“You’re not mad I broke your Claptrap,” she states rather than asks, but there’s a curious tone in her voice.

 

“Not really, he’ll be okay soon,” he sighs, slouches his shoulders for a moment before remembering he’s carrying someone. “I’ll get some peace for at least a few hours, so you have my thanks for that.”

 

“If you say so,” Nelliel comments and Ichigo shrugs as she looks back at the robot.

 

**V.**

Fortunately, the clinic isn’t so full that Inoue can’t come and help him. His father tells she can go, and stares at him with stern eyes of _we’ll talk about this later_ , but Ichigo can deal with that later. Preferably with one of Yuzu’s delicious dishes between them, just in case he reacts too badly.

 

His dad is a very understanding man – too silly sometimes, if anyone asks Ichigo – so in theory it shouldn’t be hard to let the, uh, _visitors_ stay for the night. In practice, though, everything will only work out well if Ichigo’s trust in the two isn’t misplaced, and that whatever it is Nelliel didn’t tell him isn’t a really, _really_ bad thing.

 

Ichigo sighs as he follows Inoue and Nelliel into a vacant room, and carefully puts Grimmjow on one of the beds. Nelliel sits cross-legged on the other, and insists that she can wait to be taken care of. Inoue nods, reaches Grimmjow and carefully takes his cloak off.

 

The robotic arm should make Ichigo grin for guessing correctly, but the thing is too damaged for him to do anything but gape and then wince when Inoue lifts him into a sitting position and the arm twitches before dropping dead again. He steps closer and crouches low enough to be on eye level with the arm.

 

“Two of the Psychos caught him by surprise,” Nelliel mutters and he turns to listen to her. “I shot them dead but couldn’t stop them from doing this much damage.”

 

Ichigo nods, looking back at the mostly dismantled arm. “Well, you did the best you could.”

 

Nelliel scowls, changing positions so she can hug her legs and rests her chin on her knees.

 

“I, uh, I can fix his arm up,” he gulps, eyes never leaving from its sight. “If you don’t think he’d mind, of course.”

 

“How good are you?” Nelliel asks, narrows her eyes as she waits for an answer.

 

“Kurosaki-kun is the best in town when it’s about repairing anything tech or mechanical related!” Inoue pipes up before Ichigo can answer, and he smiles, bashful of her response. She doesn’t look at him, too focused accessing Grimmjow’s wounds. “Unless you need your car or van or motorcycle fixed. That’s Urahara-san’s specialty.”

 

Nelliel nods, weighting the woman’s words. The silence present while she thinks isn’t heavy, but Ichigo can’t help but feel some sort of anticipation in his gut. He stretches up, something to do to pass the time until Nel speaks again.

 

When she finally nods, Ichigo smiles and tries not to think about all the possible upgrades he can give the man’s arm. He doesn’t know what Grimmjow would like, and assuming is just plain rude, he’ll just stick to fixing the broken parts and nothing more.

 

“But you can only take his arm out after your friend –” she’s cut off by Inoue’s gentle voice, asking – _telling_ – her to call her Orihime. “Right, sorry. After Orihime is done with me you can take his arm off. I want to be there when you repair it.”

 

Ichigo nods, “Fair enough.”

 

**VI.**

It doesn’t take more than half an hour for Orihime patch up Grimmjow.

 

She turns to Nelliel and motions for the woman to take her cloak off. After some hesitation, the cloak comes off along with the jacket and Orihime doesn’t know what to say. Of course she’s heard the stories, there’s not a single kid in Pandora that doesn’t know the most recognizable part of a siren. But, _hearing_ about them and _seeing_ one with your eyes, in flesh and live in front of you, are completely different experiences.

 

Nelliel’s tattoos are beautiful, the blue wavy-like symbols inking thorough the left side of her body – Orihime can’t see more than what’s on her arm, neck and part of chest, but she knows they exist, if what she’s been told about the sirens is true.

 

She moves closer, taking her time but decidedly not staring at the tattoos, because she thinks it’s rude to do so, and she doesn’t want to offend. Stopping at the feet of the bed, Orihime waits until Nelliel sits up correctly before she tells the siren what she’ll be doing.

 

Every time she touches a bruised place, she asks Nelliel how painful it is, taking note of each answer and comparing to the woman’s face – she’s treated soldiers from Sanctuary’s rebel group before, she knows how some people try to toughen it up even in situations where they shouldn’t.

 

Just like with Grimmjow, thankfully nothing seems to be broken, so she bandages everything that needs it and then turns to Ichigo.

 

“You’ll need to do some x-rays just to be sure, but that’s with doctor Kurosaki – I’ll talk to him about it though! So no need to worry; you two can stay in this room for tonight,” she says through the elastic band she’s holding between her lips as she pulls her hair up. “I’m sorry, Kurosaki-kun, but this is all I can do for now. I have to get back.”

 

Well, at least that rids Kurosaki-kun from trying to convince his dad that letting two complete strangers practically covered everywhere in blood spend the night isn’t a big deal.

 

“Thank you so much, Inoue,” he hugs her, tightly, and she hugs him just as strongly. Even if they work basically next to one another, Orihime is too busy taking care of patients and when he’s not busy, he knows better than to bother her at the clinic. These days they can only talk properly when she’s working at Haineko’s with Chad.

 

She waves at Nelliel and wishes her a good night. Nelliel chuckles but thanks Orihime, waving back at her.

 

**VII.**

“Alright,” Nel jumps off the bed as soon as the door closes, pulling up her jacket. “Let’s talk about Grimmjow’s arm.”

 

Ichigo nods, takes one elbow with his hand and stretches it behind his back, then repeats the action with the other one before walking up to her. She analyses Grimmjow’s robotic arm for a moment, then turns to him, eyes narrowed, and Ichigo can feel a finger poking his chest, hard.

 

“You don’t add _anything_ to it, understand?” he nods, brings up both his hands up in an attempt to appease her and she grins, almost ferocious. “We can’t keep moving him around, so I’ll stay here with him and you can work your magic. I am going to check up on you eventually, though, so you better not do anything funny.”

 

“Okay, I get it,” Ichigo laughs, puts his hands down and turns to Grimmjow, already detaching the arm from the man. “Anything else you need me to know before I go?”

 

With his back turned to Nel, he doesn’t see when she crosses her arms, stares at the floor with a small crease between her brows. When he does look at her, though, she’s already giving him a tiny, hesitant smile.

 

“I, uh,” she swallows, tries again. “Thank you for doing this for us. We’ll pay you back, don’t worry.”

 

He stops, hand already on the doorknob, and stares at her, dumbfounded. But Ichigo recovers quickly and grins, shrugs as if to say it’s no trouble, walks out, leaving Nel to look after a passed out Grimmjow. She sighs and drops herself on his bed, careful not to hurt him on the process.

 

She scoots over and moves him around so they’re side by side, and takes his wrist, feeling his pulse. Sighing, Nel pulls an arm over her face and tries not to think about the weight in one of her pockets. They’ve been lucky so far, but she doesn’t know how much further they can push it, not if Aizen’s got his _hounds_ out there looking for them.

 

“We have to get our act together before one of us gets killed,” it’s meant to be a joke, but she barely manages to keep a sob in. “God, Grimmjow, we better have taken the right choice.”

 

All she gets is the sound of his slow breathing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> took me a while to update the fic bc i had some problems with my laptop lmao but now it's all good so i hope y'all will enjoy this chapter!

**VIII.**

 

Grimmjow’s metal arm is completely _destroyed_ , and Ichigo almost wants to cry because of such mistreatment of such a good piece of tech.

 

If he’d stop to imagine how it looked like in better condition, he’d whistle in appreciation and would definitely ask who made it. Right now, though, he’s more focused on deciding where to start with this piece of shitty scrap metal in front of him.

 

Picking up the arm, Ichigo starts taking apart all the unusable parts, mostly the plates, leaving pretty much just the skeleton of wires. He tosses them in a bin, making a mental note to take it to the small junkyard near Urahara’s auto repair shop. He’ll probably melt it into something that can be usable.

 

The hand and fingers are the least destroyed parts. Ichigo polishes them just out of habit, then moves up to the forearm, assessing the wires’ condition. Mostly they’re still good for use, but there are two that have been cut, and he sighs as he reaches for his box of spares. He celebrates mentally when he finds the ones he needs, cuts the old ones off and attaches the spare wires in their place.

 

It’s been a while since his last mechanical body part repair, and usually he’d be whistling some silly tune as he works, but his mind keeps going back to Nelliel and Grimmjow. He frowns, grabs new plates and lets them right next to him for when he’s ready to cover this part up, and tries not to think too much about what is it that those two are hiding.

 

Ichigo shakes his head, focusing back on his task. He takes the arm on his hands, touching, analyzing its mobility. He idly notices Grimmjow’s arm is completely mod-free, which makes him raise an eyebrow. Not many people keep their tech that simple. He shrugs, figuring it’s none of his business anyway and gets back to work. Satisfied, he puts it back on the table, moving on to the sensors.

 

Working on actuators, sensors and microprocessors is a bit trickier than just exchanging wires, but Ichigo is well-acquainted with the process. It takes a while to finish that part, but he always wants to give his best when he’s working, plus Grimmjow is most probably still sleeping, so it’s not like he’s in a rush.

 

A few minutes past 3am Nelliel arrives to check up on his progress, and by this time, he’s almost finished, checking for any problems that could still be there. Her footsteps are silent, and she stops next to him. She watches quietly as he works, and as much as Ichigo would like to know what expression is on her face, he doesn’t look away from the arm.

 

“This is looking pretty good, Ichigo,” Nelliel states and he ducks his head a little, smiles, pride accommodating itself on his chest. “I’m glad you’re helping us and taking this seriously. Grimmjow doesn’t say it, but I know he likes this arm a whole lot.”

 

“It’s a good mechanical arm, so I can see why he wouldn’t like to trade it,” he nods, untangles three wires and pulls on them to see if they’re secure enough. Finally, he puts the arm and tools down to look at Nel. “How is he, by the way?”

 

“Better now, I guess,” she hugs herself, looking _through_ Ichigo instead of _at_ him. “He’s not awake yet, but I’m sure he’ll wake up soon enough.”

 

Ichigo pats her shoulder, going for a comforting gesture, then turns back to his task while Nelliel takes a look at it. Grimmjow’s arm seems brand new, and the only difference Nelliel can notice from when it wasn’t all battered is the color.

 

“I couldn’t find the same color,” he explains, hand scratching at the back of his neck. “Sorry. I hope this one is fine.”

 

Before, the arm had a very annoyingly – in Nelliel’s opinion – bright yellow color that had gotten them a few curious stares before, so the quiet gray Ichigo put is an extremely good improvement.

 

“I think he’ll like it,” then she turns to smile at him. “Won’t thank you for it, though, so I hope you don’t mind.”

 

Ichigo shrugs, not bothered at all.

 

**IX.**

 

Waking up alone in a strange room isn’t Grimmjow’s biggest concern – that’s reserved for the lack of weight he feels on his left side.

 

Still lying in bed, he frowns, trying to remember what happened to him that got him here. Flashes of psychos attacking him and Nel fill his brain, followed by the feeling of pain when they got his arm right where the most sensitive parts were. He groans, shifting so he’s on his side, and tries to focus.

 

They managed to kill those annoying guys and escape the desert; that much is obvious. He knows he and Nel didn’t get separated because judging the pain he’s in, there’s no way he could’ve even stand on his own last night. He also remembers her voice, telling him something that _could_ be important, but he doesn’t remember _what_ , so there’s that. Some parts are fuzzy, but he’ll bet whatever place she found for them to hide wasn’t empty long enough for them to rest and bail out as soon as the first morning lights came.

 

Something’s nagging at the back of his brain, trying to tell him something. Grimmjow’s frown deepens as he tries to concentrate.  Nothing comes up, so the only thing left is to assume he was 100% passed out at this point. It makes him curse out loud, hand punching the bed a couple times before he tries to get himself up.

 

It takes some effort, but he manages to sit up, supporting himself with his hand. He growls, touches the empty hole where his other arm was supposed to be, and tries not to panic. He’s not succeeding, he knows, the rapid breathing is pretty telling on its own.

 

Grimmjow tries to get out of the bed, stumbles and almost trips on his own foot, but it doesn’t stop him from reaching for the door. Grunting, he forces himself to take one step forward, and his eyes are darting everywhere in case there’s a threa–

 

“You’re awake!” Nel skips immediately to his side, guiding him back to bed. “I’ll bring your arm in just a second.”

 

She turns to leave, but stops when Grimmjow’s hand grasps her wrist. Looking at him, she stays quiet, head tilted to the side as she waits for him to say something.

 

“What…” he starts, wets his lips and then continues. “What happened? Where are we?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Nel taps her knuckles on her forehead, mutters something that sounds like a curse to Grimmjow. “Uh, long story short, the place we crashed was a repair shop and the guy who owns the place was unexpectedly kind enough to help us. We’re in a hospital, right next door to his workplace.”

 

Grimmjow nods, absentminded, processing the information in his brain.

 

“And what about my arm?” he asks, lifting his head to look at Nel. “I’m sure it wasn’t broke to the point you had to throw it out.”

 

“No, but it was in a really bad condition, and Ichigo offered to fix it,” she puts a hand in front of him, shutting him up. “If you mean to say anything that implies I wouldn’t overlook while he worked on your arm, you offend me. And you also make me want to cry for that. Or punch you, who knows.”

 

Grimmjow chuckles, shaking his head. He’s not too keen on someone he doesn’t know messing with his arm, but he’s a bit reassured that Nel trusted the guy to fix it, yet not enough to let him do it on his own.

 

“Okay, so where is he?”

 

“He’ll be here soon,” she sits next to him on the bed, her feet going back and forth idly. “Told me he had to fix his Claptrap first, though he didn’t seem too eager to do it.”

 

“A Claptrap unit, huh?” Grimmjow mumbles. “Thought those were all destroyed after its decommission.”

 

Nel shakes her head, looks forward, seemingly staring at the wall.

 

“No, there’s still a few of those around,” she bumps their shoulders together, figuring since she’s on his right side he wouldn’t get freaked out by the reminder of his lacking arm. “I saw another one while I dragged your sorry ass through the town.”

 

Smiling, she pats him on the top of his head; Grimmjow shoves her hand away and snarls to cover his embarrassment.

 

“Now come on,” Nel pushes him off the bed, letting him put most of his weight on her so he can walk without any complications. “Orihime asked me to get you because the doctor wants to take some x-rays.”

 

**X.**

Bringing K0n back to a usable state isn’t something Ichigo wants to do, but Yuzu loves the damn thing and he wouldn’t be able to lie to her that the CL4P-TP unit is broken for good. So he works on fixing the robot, headache already working its way towards his entire head before K0n is even turned back on.

 

He doesn’t put much effort to it, sure that the machine won’t break so easily anyway. As soon as he’s done, Ichigo grabs Grimmjow’s robotic arm and bolts to the hospital, not paying attention to K0n’s frantic cries.

 

The room Nel and Grimmjow are in is empty, so Ichigo makes himself comfortable in one of the beds, robotic arm on his lap. He stares down at it, not satisfied enough with his work – the arm could do with a few improvements here and there, but neither its owner nor Nel asked for that, so all he can do is settle for what he did.

 

Snapping his head back up, Ichigo watches silently as Inoue opens the door for Grimmjow and Nelliel enter right after. He waves at them, but only the women respond while the man strides towards Ichigo, and stops right in front of him, one eyebrow raised. Ichigo frowns, not sure how to react.

 

“I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re the one who fixed it,” Grimmjow points to his arm and Ichigo nods. “Right. I, uh, thanks for that, I guess.”

 

Inoue giggles as she closes the door, taking one last look at Ichigo before leaving.

 

Ichigo smiles a little, somewhat amused by the man’s manners. Getting up, he silently asks if Grimmjow wants help to attach it back to his body, and the vault hunter shrugs, motions his hand to the hole as a go ahead.

 

Arm in place, Grimmjow flexes his fingers, waves his hand and moves his limb in several directions, testing it out.

 

“You’re pretty good, uh–”he frowns, trying to remember the name Nelliel told him.

 

“Ichigo Kurosaki,” the man himself supplies. Grimmjow snaps his fingers, which Ichigo supposes is his way of saying thanks.

 

“Kurosaki, you did a fucking great job,” he grins, still eyeing his arm with something like wonder, and then looks up at Nel. “Now all I need is a place to test out if it’s still good to shoot.”

 

“How about a shower first?” Nelliel scrunches up her nose and stares Grimmjow down like he’s been bathing in trash for the past few days.

 

“You don’t exactly smell like flowers yourself,” Grimmjow snorts, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

 

“Quit whining and stop with the cat baths, you reek,” she flicks two of her fingers between his eyebrows and turns to Ichigo. “I know you already did a lot for us, but do you think we could use your shower?”

 

“It’s no problem, seriously,” he scratches the back of his neck as he walks to the door. “You two been discharged yet?”

 

“Yep,” Nelliel nods excitedly, grabs Grimmjow on his human arm and drags him along, ignoring his protests.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter this time bc i want to get things going lmao

**XI.**

Showering is not the big commotion Nel thought it would be.

 

Ichigo takes them to the only shooting range in town, owned by a beautiful woman with glasses and a stern glare. Nel frowns, feeling thrown off by the woman’s standoffishness.

 

The lady guides them to their stations, hands out eyes and hearing protection and steps out after giving the mandatory safety speech.

 

“Oh, almost forgot,” she turns around, tapping the side of her head lightly. “I’ll be watching from my place at the front, so if you need anything, that’s where you can find me.”

 

“Thank you, Nanao-san,” Ichigo says.

 

Grimmjow, meanwhile, is checking his pistol one last time before buzzing for a target. Positioning himself properly, he narrows his eyes, takes a breath, and after a few, quiet seconds, he shoots.

 

It’s a headshot.

 

“Well, I’d say that’s a good start,” he murmurs, changes the settings so the target isn’t immobile anymore and prepares to shoot again.

 

After using up all his bullets, Grimmjow brings the target close to them, grinning excitedly – and it’s been a while since Nel saw that look on his face, so it surprises her a little – as he turns to them, satisfied. The target has holes in mostly vital places for humans, and a few stray ones that would hurt but not fatally wound the person. Nel whistles appreciatively, takes out her own gun and grins.

 

“That’s pretty nice, but you should pay attention to the real professional here,” she ignores Grimmjow’s snort in favor of setting up a new hole-free target for herself.

 

After Nel aces all of her shots, Grimmjow starts a shooting competition that Ichigo is somehow pulled into, and Nel is sure the man leaves his hesitancy and confusion behind when he starts pulling more points than Grimmjow. At this point, they start what Nel can only describe as bickering, and she laughs quietly, for a light moment in the middle of all the heavy shit she and Grimmjow have been through recently.

 

It’s when she’s jumping up and down that the problem starts, a mildly loud _thud_ bringing the men’s attention. Nel freezes and Grimmjow’s eyes widen almost comically, both trying to assess Ichigo’s reaction while trying not to look like it.

 

First, Ichigo frowns, crouches to see better the object that fell from Nel’s pocket. She quickly snatches it away from his field of vision, clutches it tightly to her chest, forcing a calm smile as Ichigo stands up. When their eyes meet, something at the back of her brain whispers that the look on his face means he recognizes the piece she’s holding.

 

“Is that–” he starts, shakes his head and lets it fall slightly to the side, analyzing the object. He lifts his eyes to stare at Nel before continuing. “This isn’t a part of a vault key, right?”

 

Nel tenses, wonders if he’s a vault hunter too, if he knows about how they got this one specifically, if he knew who they were from the start and pretended he didn’t, if he _knows_ and was waiting for the right moment to take them back to Aizen, if he’s–

 

“What if it is, huh?” Grimmjow snaps, catching Ichigo’s attention and receiving a glare from Nel. The relaxed stance he had not even a minute ago is now stiff and Nel grinds her teeth at the sight. “You’re not thinking about doing something stupid, now are you?”

 

Ichigo raises his brows and offence quickly appears on his face.

 

“What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?” he opens his arms, walks up to Grimmjow and stares him down. When the man doesn’t answer, Ichigo huffs, turns to Nel with eyes pleading for an explanation.

 

For all the little time they’ve known each other, she can feel her heart constrict.

 

“Grimmjow,” she calls and the man looks at her, a silent conversation happening with only stares – Grimmjow huffs and throws his arms up in defeat. Turning to Ichigo, she continues. “Yes, this is a piece of the vault key.”

 

“Okay, thanks for answering, but,” he side-eyes Grimmjow and continues. “Why the overreaction?”

 

“Um,” Nel starts, one hand scratching the other. “We found this in a place it shouldn’t be and took it because we know what to do with it better than whoever had it first.”

 

Ichigo frowns, narrows his eyes like he can notice the uncertainty on her voice, like he doesn’t fully believe what’s she’s saying. Then he sighs, hands on his hips, looks down for a moment and then back up, a semblance of a smile on his face. Nel is sure he knows she’s not telling the whole story, but by the looks of it he’s willing to let it go – she would say by now, but the chances of them coming back to Sanctuary again is so slim she’s suddenly not sure why lying to Ichigo makes her feel guilty.

 

“So you two are searching for the other parts?” Ichigo asks, looking back and forth between her and Grimmjow, eagerness clear on both his voice and eyes.

 

“That’s the idea, yeah,” Grimmjow replies hesitantly, one eyebrow up as he decides whether or not he should voice his thoughts. “Why d’you wanna know?”

 

Ichigo is positively vibrating thanks to the answer, Nel is sure. Suddenly, she remembers where they are and the paranoia stuck in the depth of her brain speaks up, warning words of cameras and possible audio. They don’t need more people knowing about it – Ichigo is already enough.

 

“We should probably go to another place if we’re gonna keep talking about this.”

 

**XII.**

 

Grimmjow thinks about the decisions he’s made in his life and wonders which ones brought him to this moment.

 

Kurosaki wants to go with them, though he won’t say why, and while Grimmjow is suspicious Nel thinks it’s a good idea – safety in numbers and whatnot, also what if they encounter something, someone that the two of them can’t handle on their own. And yes, he’ll grudgingly admit she has a point, but she doesn’t need to know that, now does she? But–

 

“What about your shop?” he asks, because he’s still not too keen on traveling with other people that aren’t Nel, doesn’t know who he can trust and who will eventually stab him in the back – one human arm less is enough to make him smarter. So he asks as a last attempt to keep him from joining them.

 

“Oh,” he grins, and strangely looks very proud in Grimmjow’s opinion. “My sisters can handle this place. Well, mostly Karin, but Yuzu is getting better with the tech.”

 

“And what will you tell them before you leave?” crossing his arms, Grimmjow leans against the wall, takes a better look at the shop now that it’s brighter and he’s more conscious.

 

“The truth,” Kurosaki shrugs, as if the truth wasn’t exactly what the two were trying not to let other people know.

 

“Ichigo,” Nel calls, eyebrows almost touching one another in apprehension. “People can’t know about this.”

 

“Why not?” Kurosaki’s question makes Grimmjow want to slam his own head on the wall several times. “It’s not like anyone in Sanctuary cares about that.”

 

Grimmjow and Nel stare at him as if he had grown another head, his words heard by them but not fully understood.

 

“You know the rebellion has vault hunters – current and former ones – among them, right?” he smiles, not unkindly, and Grimmjow looks back at Nel with confused eyes as she turns to him with surprised ones. “There’s also Nanao – you know, the shooting range lady –, she was in the business until a few years ago, quit when it got too, um… _wild_ for her.”

 

“But,” Nel starts, not yet ready to believe. “I’m sure I saw wanted posters at the square, that’s why I made sure we didn’t walk in crowded places.”

 

“Oh, that,” Kurosaki laughs, as if having a bounty on your head was hilarious. “It’s, uh, kind of a showing off contest? No one here would dare to betray a vault hunter, not when they protect us from Hyperion scum and other corporations that aren’t so nice either, so those are only there for people to know who is the most wanted around here.”

 

They mull over the information, then Nel looks at Kurosaki, _really_ looks at him, and gives him the go ahead. He smiles and walks up the stairs with them right behind him, ready to drop the news to his family.

 

**XIII.**

With the discussion finished, a commotion happens.

 

It starts above the shop, where the Kurosaki family lives.

 

After Ichigo introduces Grimmjow and Nel to his family and explains what he intends to do, Isshin is the first to react, crying all over the poster of his wife about how Ichigo is planning on leaving his family now that he’s grown up.

 

“Dad…” Ichigo says, puts a hand in front of his eyes in embarrassment.

 

“No, no, it’s okay,” Isshin stands up, and even though Ichigo knows those are crocodile tears streaming down his face, the sadness over him leaving – even if temporarily – is legitimate. “I knew this was going to happen someday – well, I didn’t _know_ that exactly but I had a feeling something like this would happen. So! Dear son of mine, wait for me here until I come back with a parting gift for you.”

 

Without leaving room for anyone to protest, Isshin runs to his bedroom, leaving his kids looking at each other in astonishment. It’s Karin who recovers first, punches Ichigo on his side weakly – though it still hurts, because she hasn’t been training various fighting styles since she was twelve years old for nothing.

 

“That one was for you going away so suddenly like that,” she says, crosses her arms to hide her trembling hands. She’s not looking at him, rather facing the vault hunters with a sneer. “I don’t know why you decided to go now of all times or why it’s with them, but you better come home soon! And don’t you dare come back in any way but in one piece, okay?”

 

At this point, she’s pouting, not that Ichigo would point that out to her, and the tears she’s trying so hard to hold back will probably fall soon. Ichigo’s hand falls on Karin’s head, messing with her hair before he takes it off and hugs her tight.

 

Then he looks at Yuzu, quiet lovely _strong_ Yuzu with the big, _big_ heart, and stands in front of her, crouched as he waits for her to say something, anything. Touching her cheek, Ichigo wipes away her tears and opens his arms just in time for her to hug him, head buried on his neck and shaking with sobs.

 

“I’m going to miss you, Ichi-nii,” her voice is barely more than a whisper, but they’re close enough that he can understand. “Don’t do anything too reckless, please.”

 

“ _Too_ reckless?” Ichigo asks, amused. “What makes you think I’ll be reckless at all?”

 

Yuzu pushes him away, holds him by the shoulders and shoots him a stare so strong that for one second he thinks it’s his mother who’s in front of him, not his sweet baby sister.

 

“You seriously asking that question, big bro?” Karin chimes in, slapping him on the back of his head as she walks closer to her twin. Ichigo laughs weakly.

 

“Okay, point,” he takes Yuzu’s hands off his shoulders, holding them instead. “I promise I’ll try not to do anything too reckless.”

 

“Just _try_?” Yuzu frowns, yanks her hands off her brother’s and puts them on her hips.

 

“Wouldn’t lie to you,” he says, and it’s not the most comforting promise, but she’ll take what she can get from him. “I wouldn’t even if I could.”

 

The moment is broken by Isshin’s return, since his foot tried to land on his son’s face. Ichigo sighs, wondering why he thought the old man wouldn’t try to give him one last lesson before he goes. In a way, it’s kind of nice of him, if only a little annoying. Looking back at Nel and Grimmjow he shrugs at their dumbfounded expressions.

 

“Don’t worry, he’s always been silly like that,” he starts to explain, sidestepping so Isshin misses his blow. “It’s just his way of training me, considering the planet we live in and all.”

 

Grimmjow nods as if that explains everything, that it makes sense even, while Nel still looks doubtful. She doesn’t comment, but Ichigo can tell what’s she’s thinking, that his family has a weird dynamic – and she wouldn’t be the first to think that, nor the last. He doesn’t mind, though, he likes his family the way it is, and other’s opinions mean nothing to him.

 

“My son!” Isshin lands a heavy hand on his shoulder, causing him to wince slightly. “I see that there’s nothing else that you can learn from me, which is why I know you’re prepared to face this cruel, terrible world that is Pandora. Now only the places you’ll go can teach you what I can’t, and you’re the type of amazing student that can absorb it all easily enough.”

 

Ichigo feels his cheeks burning. He’s not ashamed of the way his dad acts – well, most of the time anyway. Isshin always means well, though, so Ichigo learned not to get angry every time his father does or says something embarrassing.

 

“Oh yeah, so, dad!” Ichigo says, trying to will his embarrassment away. “You said you had something to give me.”

 

The silly aura around Isshin disappears, and in its place an almost melancholic smiles appears. Ichigo doesn’t frown, narrows his eyes or stares in confusion – he simply looks at his dad with legitimate curiosity as Isshin hands him a small wooden box.

 

“This isn’t exactly the best time to talk about this, but I guess there’s no other choice; you guys are probably in a hurry, if I still remember how vault hunters are like,” he says the last part in laughter, turns to Grimmjow and Nel as if studying them, and looks back to his son with an approving smile. “Short story is, this is from your mom. I’m still keeping the ones she has for your sisters, but she wanted me to give the boxes to our kids once they decided to do something big, something important.”

 

Ichigo swallows, hesitantly tracing his fingers on the symbol that’s on the top of the box, and then faces his father.

 

“Oh crap, I almost forgot the other part,” he slaps his own forehead, berating himself. “You can’t open it now. She said you can only do that when you feel like giving up.”

 

Ichigo opens his mouth, though he quickly shuts it when Isshin raises his hand, “No, I don’t know why she wanted me to say that, just like I don’t know what’s in it.” then he’s back to his silly self, practically spinning to his wife’s poster. “Though I hope it’s a cute picture with all of us in it, so you can always look at it if you get homesick. Ah, Masaki, even now you still know exactly what your children need. Oh, you amazing woman whom I was lucky enough to marry!”

 

Karin covers her face with her hand and Ichigo decides that’s a great idea, quickly imitating her. Yuzu just smiles softly, and has stopped crying – thankfully, Ichigo thinks, not being one to enjoy when his sisters are unhappy.

 

He finishes packing and hugs his family one last time, turns to Nel and Grimmjow and leads them. Outside, he stops and catches their attention simply for acting hesitant before speaking.

 

“Um, there’s one more place I want to go before we talk to Urahara about a car or a van or something, if you guys are okay with that.”

 

**XIV.**

Meeting Orihime and the tallest man she’s ever seen at the front of a bar is not what Nel was expecting. Nor were the bags those two were carrying along determined expressions.

 

“Kurosaki-kun, Chad and I decided we’re going vault hunting with you,” Orihime declares, hands on hips. “And you can’t convince us otherwise!”

 

“How did you even know that I’m leaving, and more importantly how did you know what I was going to do?” Ichigo is too thrown off to argue about why they should stay, which Nel guesses is exactly what they need to win this battle.

 

Nel decides she likes those two, a lot.

 

“Your dad called us,” the tall man – Chad – answers, incredibly calm considering everything, and Ichigo’s attention is solely on him now. “Didn’t tell us to do this; we just decided we would.”

 

“I’m not – I don’t–” Ichigo shakes his head, tries again. “What about work?”

 

“Oh, good, you guys haven’t left yet,” a woman interrupts, and Nel wonders idly if she’ll want to come with them too. There’s strength in numbers, yes, but there’s also a limit.

 

“Rangiku! Are you serious about this? Letting them come with me?” Ichigo stops in front of her, not to look intimidating but so he doesn’t have to raise his voice and cause a scene. “I thought Chad and Inoue were your favorite employees.”

 

“And they still are,” she replies with a cunning smile on her face, pats him on the face. “So you better take care of them for me, okay? I want those two back alive and well. Oh, and when you find the vault, I want a share of the loot. You know, the pretty, shiny guns, that kind of stuff.”

 

Ichigo nods dumbly, already at a loss of words. Nel frowns, scratches the side of her head, remembers something, and turns to Orihime.

 

“Don’t you also work for Ichigo’s dad?” she doesn’t ask it because she wants to prevent them from coming – at this point, even if Ichigo and Grimmjow protest she’s taking Chad and Orihime with them. She asks it because she’s positive that particularity has already been dealt with and Ichigo won’t be able to use it as a reason for them – or maybe just Orihime – to stay.

 

“Yuzu said she can help him!” Orihime brings the palm of her hands together, smiling at them. “She’s done it the few times I couldn’t go there so I trust her to handle the clinic while I’m gone. Plus, if I go, I’m sure that I’ll learn more about how to treat the wounded, right?”

 

Nel looks back at Ichigo, who has his arms crossed and sports a pained, troubled look on his face. She smiles, almost sadly, because those are his friends, friends who are ready to take off with him to visit the unknown, ready to face off whatever danger they’ll surely be in at – several – moments, and even though she wants those two with them, she understands why he doesn’t.

 

“Are you sure?” he asks, because how could he not?

 

Orihime nods firmly, doesn’t take her eyes off him. He sighs, turns to the man.

 

“What about you, Chad?” Ichigo’s voice is small, practically defeated. “Are you sure about this?”

 

Chad stares at him for almost a minute before speaking, “We’re friends, Ichigo.”

 

The way he says it probably carries some deeper meaning to Ichigo, makes Nel wonder if it’s some kind of promise made between the two, because Ichigo nods, slowly, and then lowers his head to hide the embarrassment he’s starting to feel.

 

“Kurosaki-kun,” Orihime calls, eyes serious as he lifts his head. “You can’t leave us behind and do this by yourself. We won’t accept that.”

 

Nel can’t find a single trace of the kindness Orihime showed while treating her and Grimmjow; it’s not like she is being rude, either, she’s just… extremely determined in a way Nel figures she hasn’t been at least in a while, considering her trembling hands.

 

Apparently Ichigo has no argument left; he stands in front of his friends, and from where she stands Nel can’t see his face, but she likes to imagine he’s smiling softly at them. At her side, Grimmjow picks at his nails, making an effort not to be involved in what’s happening in front of them. Nel elbows him on the ribs, right where he’d been hurt, and he grunts, gives her a nasty look that she chooses to ignore.

 

“What?” she smiles innocently, dropping her head to the side as if she didn’t do anything.

 

Grimmjow rolls his eyes, looks the other way. “So are we leaving today or what?”

 

**XV.**

When Kurosaki mentioned he could get them a ride, he forgot to mention how… _eccentric_ , for a lack of a more polite word, the owner – Urahara, Kurosaki told them – was.

 

“This place will surely become way more boring once you kids leave,” Urahara’s voice comes a bit muffled from where he is, under the van he let them have for free. He rolls out just so he can wipe fake tears off his face. “But you guys going after a vault sure brings back some good memories. Ah, the good old days.”

 

He slides under again, not seeing Kurosaki’s eye roll and Orihime’s giggle as a result. Chad doesn’t have any visible response to that, something that Grimmjow’s starting to get is a normal thing with the man. The only reason Nel doesn’t comment anything is that she’s too busy prattling around the auto shop, sharp eyes and curious hands not letting a single object untouched – not that Urahara seemed to mind that.

 

Grimmjow snorts, disbelieving, “ _You_ were a vault hunter?”

 

At first, he’s not sure whether he’s been heard or not, but when he breathes in and opens his mouth to repeat his question, the man comes out again, this time getting up instead of just talking from the bottom of the vehicle. He grabs the cloth Kurosaki gives him and clears his hand, scrutinizing Grimmjow up and down.

 

He’s not one to be intimidated easily, so he simply stares back, unimpressed, and Urahara gives him a smirk.

 

“What? Little old me couldn’t have been a vault hunter?” Urahara puts a hand on his chest, pretending to be offended. “Is it the hair? People usually don’t believe me because of the hair.”

 

Grimmjow frowns at the poorly hidden laugher coming from Kurosaki, and he shoots a glare at the man before getting his attention back to the, _apparently_ , ex-vault hunter. The man in question looks amused rather than angry as he takes his hat back from Orihime.

 

“Jaegerjaquez-san – that was it, right? –, I’ve searched my fair share of vaults when I was younger, even kept a few souvenirs.”

 

As he speaks, Urahara walks up to a small armoire, pulls out the top drawer. The object he carries is only a little bit bigger than his hand, and he shows it to Grimmjow, to all of them. Now that the man is at his side, Grimmjow can see Kurosaki’s face – a completely blank canvas. Grimmjow narrows his eyes, inspects the object and–

 

“No way,” he mutters, tries to contain his excitement, his wonder. “A vault key. An actual, complete vault key.”

 

“That it is,” Urahara nods, tosses it quickly to him without warning like he knows Grimmjow wants to touch it, even though he wouldn’t ask it himself. “Second and last vault I ever found; kept it as a reminder of that time.”

 

“But why d’you quit?” Grimmjow asks, frowning as he gives the key back.

 

Urahara shrugs, seemingly unpreoccupied. “Just figured hunting vaults thorough Pandora wasn’t so rewarding the older I got.”

 

“Urahara-san–” Kurosaki starts but the man speaks over him.

 

“Oh, and that reminds me!” he punches lightly his fist on his open palm, focus on the other three. “If you kids need any help with, well, anything – the van, the search, whatever it is you’re having trouble with – do not hesitate to use that ECHO device I got you guys. Ah, did I ever give you shields? If there’s something more important than having enough bullets in your gun during a fight, it’s a shield.”

 

It’s only after they nod that Urahara gets back on gearing up the van for them. “Good, good; now you’ll just have to wait a couple minutes while I install some… security measures on this thing.”

 

“Hearing you call our transportation a _thing_ is not exactly comforting,” Kurosaki laughs despite him complaint and sits on one of the boxes near the wall, facing the van.

 

Urahara’s only response is a light chuckle.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, so just a warning??? i use the term 'psycho' bc that's what the game uses as well! all of the nameless enemies are from the game itself so they will have the same name

**XVI.**

“We good to go now or is there anywhere else you three want to waste our precious time on?” Grimmjow, as always, doesn’t make an effort to have not even a resemblance of tact around people he’s not familiar with – and acts like he’s not doing it on purpose.

 

Nel glares at him, sending all her disapproving unsaid thoughts through her eyes. The others don’t seem offended, though, so she lets his rudeness pass this time.

 

“I think we’re good, right, guys?” Ichigo turns to his friends, waiting for the nod before looking back at Grimmjow. “Lead the way, I guess.”

 

Grimmjow gives his back to them, walks to the van, but Nel is right at his side and she notices the amused grin on his face. She smiles, certain that those two will get along just fine if years of knowing Grimmjow ever taught her anything – whether that will be soon or not she’s not sure, but she knows it will happen at some point. And that makes her happy, really; she and Grimmjow need more friends, more people they can trust – _especially_ Grimmjow.

 

She jumps at the chance of getting the driver’s side and Grimmjow pouts quickly before schooling his expression and calls shotgun. Nel smiles a bit sadly, missing for a moment the times when it was just the two of them, where he showed emotions without having to fear any sort of bad repercussion for it.

 

_Hyperion was never a place for empathy_ , she thinks bitterly, tightens her grip on the wheels and pretends not to notice Grimmjow’s inquisitive stare. Months hiding and traveling together results in her reading him all too well, but the opposite is also true and sometimes she catches herself thinking if that was a good thing after all.

 

“Is everyone okay back there?” she asks, smiles at the excited affirmative answers and gets the van going.

 

**XVII.**

It’s kind of a wonder they never left Sanctuary before, Orihime muses. Right past the gates she can already see the wilderness of Pandora, with skags running after them with determination and shooting what she thinks is a corrosive material, never mind they’re faster than the animals and the attack doesn’t even graze them.

 

But she can also see the beauty in it; clear sky and not so blinding snow, bullymongs chasing one another playfully – she thinks it’s playfully, she’s never seen one of those this close before, only on TV or books. They’re only at the start of their hunting and she knows the mood won’t always be this calm, so she takes it all in while she can.

 

Orihime still remembers the all exciting stories Tatsuki-chan told her about the places she’s been on almost all over the planet, chasing after the same thing Orihime and her friends – and two people who she hopes she will be able to call friends soon – are now.

 

Tatsuki had been so brave when Orihime was not; going searching the lands, chasing adventures and coming back only after months had passed, back to Orihime treating her wounds and shooting her worried glances whenever she mentioned another lead. Bouncing back quickly from a false vault tip, bouncing back from dire situations, bouncing back from anything negative that happened to her whenever she searched for her treasure until–

 

“So, Nel, where are we going first?” Kurosaki-kun asks and she breathes heavily, thankful for the interruption, and grabs her hands together on her lap to force them to stop shaking.

 

Orihime moves her head to look at the siren, eager for the answer as the woman took her time as if considering something.

 

“Well,” she starts, steering the van to the side quickly to avoid a collision with a big purple skag. “I thought we should visit an old friend of mine who, for some reason, always knows something about the vaults.”

 

Grimmjow’s head snaps to the left and he glares at Nel, “Isn’t that a little too far away?”

 

From where she is sitting, Orihime can’t see their faces too well, so she wonders what Nel looks like right now.

 

“Yes, but it’s not like we know where the rest of the pieces are,” Nel answers, curses when she runs over a skag.

 

Grimmjow huffs and rests his head on the window, “I guess you have a point.”

 

“You act like visiting her is your biggest nightmare, but I know you two can get along,” she glances at him, and Orihime can see a smirk on her face as she continues. “When you two are willing to act like adults, at least.”

 

“What the fuck, Nelliel,” Grimmjow’s protest isn’t as strong as Orihime thought it would be, as if he agrees with her good-natured teasing.

 

Orihime, Kurosaki-kun and Chad’s chuckle is short-lived by Nel’s shout of warning; Chad follows her and they both get on the top of the van, ready to use the turret if needed – god, how she hoped not – while the others ran out to fight a group of psychos.

 

**XVIII.**

There’s a blatantly obvious difference between someone who’s used to be on either side of a gun and some poor unlucky bastard that has been caught in the middle of a gun fight with an old pistol and a lack of experience on, well, shooting anyone.

 

Well, anyone _human_ anyway, which means all the times he tested the quality of his client’s guns after he was done with fixing them by shooting at K0n doesn’t count.

 

Ichigo takes cover, kneeling down behind the remains of a concrete wall. Hands shaking, he looks over to check where everyone is; Grimmjow handles his shotgun with ease, keeping any psychos from getting too close to Nel, who uses her siren powers to trap some of the guys midair and shoots them without even breaking a sweat. The laughter and taunting doesn’t come from the two – that’s all on the men attacking them.

 

“ _I wonder if I plant you in the ground, if you'll grow taller?!_ ” a psycho shouts at Grimmjow’s face, but the man doesn’t seem too fazed by this kind of things being yelled at him.

 

A loud shot and the psycho is on the ground, not taunting anymore. Not saying anything at all, really.

 

He curses, thinks _what if I get in their way_ and at that he shakes his head, trying to make these thoughts go away. Closing his eyes, Ichigo breathes in harshly and stands up quickly in case he has second thoughts about his decision.

 

Shooting to kill is not an option he’s willing to consider; it isn’t even an option at all. So he targets the places that would incapacitate them, but no mortal wounds would come from his pistol if he had any say in that.

 

There’s bodies on the ground and blood on him _on Nel on Grimmjow_ and he’s not sure if it’s theirs or the psychos’. He feels sick; his stomach is hurling, he can feel the way his throat tightens when he tries to swallow his own saliva and he’s not sure that’s a good or bad thing, since that also means he hasn’t thrown up yet.

 

Looking back at the van he can see Chad and Inoue using the turret to keep a few stronger psychos at bay, just until Grimmjow and Nel take care with the ones they have on their hands at the moment. Chad and Orihime seem to be doing okay, protected by the height of the van. If he could look closer, he would see how green Orihime looks, but he can’t afford too much time watching anyone but himself.

 

“ _It's time for the meat puppet!_ ”

 

Ichigo shakes his head again and grits his teeth, tries harder to help and manages to shoot one guy that somehow succeeds in getting behind Grimmjow and had his arm ready to slice the vault hunter with his makeshift machete.

 

The man falls clutching his injured leg and a string of curses flying out of his mouth; a satisfied smile is noticeable on Ichigo’s face.

 

Grimmjow glances at him, then the ground where the psycho is still groaning in pain, and then back at Ichigo, nodding his thanks before turning back and kicking a midget psycho in the face, though not effectively killing him. Apparently not minding the fact, Grimmjow shoots the man Ichigo prevented from hurting him before turning to the midget.

 

“ _Why you kill him?! He my friend!_ ” the man jumps at Grimmjow, but his blow never lands thanks to bullets making his insides its new home. Grimmjow sneers and readies himself to go against another psycho.

 

Nel snarls when a bullet grazes her shoulder and sends three men flying straight into the bones of a creature Ichigo can’t recognize but guesses has died way too long ago if the dust that raises when the psychos land in it is anything to go by.

 

“Ichigo, duck!” Nel screams and Ichigo doesn’t even think, just reacts, and immediately there’s a light above his head, and a frail but extremely angry Eridium purple psycho is stuck on her energy bubble. “Get out of there!”

 

He rolls out of under the psycho and avoids the slag vomit by just a fraction. Breathing heavily and staring with both wonder and fear as the spot he was turns toxic-purple – a telling bad sign, if his brain is still working properly. He struggles to get up and at the times he can stand normally the psycho explodes; at this point more blood on him isn’t that much of a bother, though a voice at the back of his mind whispers that it should, no matter if there’s other things that deserve much more concern.

 

Nel races to Grimmjow’s side, helps him take down two of the stronger psychos – who apparently are badasses if Grimmjow’s unappreciative growl is to be believed. Ichigo races to reach them, stomps on what he hopes is not the face of a dead psycho, manages to shoot one of the men’s shoulder just in time to prevent him from putting a bullet through Grimmjow’s stomach.

 

It’s the second time he nods in gratitude, and soon the psycho meets the ground with a hole on his forehead. Ichigo flinches in a way Grimmjow doesn’t and it makes him wonder how long those two have been doing this to be so… _detached_ to the gore. He thinks about his old man, if he ever had to face a situation like this, if he ever felt as sick as Ichigo feels now, if he–

 

“Oh, fuck,” Grimmjow curses, snaps Ichigo out of his thoughts. He reloads his shotgun, walking backwards and bringing Nel and Ichigo with him. “Nelliel, please tell me that’s not a fucking goliath.”

 

“I don’t want to lie to you, so I cannot say that,” Nel checks the amount of bullets she has left as Grimmjow shoots their enemy on the arm. “Ichigo, whatever you do, _don’t_ shoot off the helmet.”

 

Ichigo nods, shifting his stance in case he needs to run out of the way, and aims at the legs; still can’t bring himself to kill someone, doesn’t want that _can’t_ turning into a _can_ anywhere soon – doesn’t want that happening ever, actually.

 

The goliath doesn’t seem bothered by the bullets tearing into his flesh; he keeps stalking towards them, wields both his assault rifles and fires happily in their direction. Fortunately, everyone manages to take cover in time, and Ichigo sees the bullets coming from Chad and Inoue hit the guy’s feet.

 

They’re still doing okay, and Ichigo is glad for that. Chad doesn’t seem to be aiming to kill, which is something Ichigo already expected – Chad’s not even a fighter most of the time, but he won’t hesitate if his friends are in danger, even though he would never kill anyone.

 

" _Welcome to die!_ " the goliath cheers, shoots aimlessly with a toddler’s joy.

 

“How many hits does that thing can take?” Ichigo hisses, not particularly looking for an answer.

 

At his right, Grimmjow gets to his knees and aims at the Goliath’s center. He hits it with the same precision Ichigo saw his targets get at the shooting range, except with all the adrenaline pumping through his veins Ichigo thinks it’s a lot more impressive now, especially when the Goliath stumbles backwards and falls with a loud _thump_.

 

The sound of the wind singing in their ears is the only thing they can hear in the couple minutes it takes them to recover their breath and make sure the goliath will stay down. Sighing in relief, Ichigo puts his pistol back on its holster and follows the others into the van.

 

Hopefully this is their only fighting of the day.

 

**XIX.**

It’s not a surprise no one in the van tries to strike up a conversation to lighten the mood, not when three of them haven’t heard that many gunshots or seen so much blood this close.

 

“There’s no way we can get clean right now,” Nel says, looks at the back at the van through the rearview window apologetically. “I promise that I’ll stop at the first sight of a place we can shower, though I can’t promise it will happen any time soon. Sorry.”

 

Kurosaki shrugs, probably trying to look unfazed by the amount of stranger’s blood he has on him. Grimmjow takes in the appearance of the three, notices Orihime’s shaky hands and Chad’s tight line on his lips, notices how Kurosaki can’t keep from messing with his hair as if that would help him get rid of the already dried-up blood in there and how Orihime can’t stop glancing at the man every now and then before exchanging worried looks with Chad.

 

Grimmjow sighs, sits back properly on his seat and rubs a hand on his face. Thinking about the fight he’s positively surprised about the newbies performance, even if none of them got a kill – not that he thought they would, not this early on and with zero experience anyway. With nothing to say himself, he settles on picking at the caked blood under his nails without real effort.

 

“Hey, so how long until we reach the place your buddy lives?” he lazily moves his head towards Nel, having enough with the heavy silence inside the vehicle.

 

Nel drums the steering wheel with her thumbs, considering. “Three, four hours maybe, if nothing else gets in the way.”

 

Grimmjow hums, nods at the answer and goes back to his boring task, counting the ammo he has left mentally. The sound of shifting at the back of the van gets his attention and he looks at the source to find Orihime searching through her back for something. He frowns, tilts his head to the side, mildly curious to what she is looking for.

 

With an exclamation she pulls out an ECHO device; Grimmjow frowns, not sure what she plans to do with it. Finally she catches his gaze and he splutters, pretends he hasn’t and she smiles softly.

 

“I wanted to check the map of this place, see if Urahara-san found anything of interest anywhere around here,” she turns the device on and focuses on it. “Since this one is already used, there could be places we’d never find already marked on it.”

 

“Didn’t ask for a goddamn explanation,” he mutters – _like a child_ , his mind supplies and he chooses to ignore it – and sits back to look at the scenery. Nel eyes him disapprovingly for a moment, but he waves her off.

 

It doesn’t take long until his eyes close and he falls into a fitful sleep.

 

**XX.**

Thankfully, the next time they stop is not because of bandits.

 

“Happy Pig Motel?” Ichigo frowns and steps out of the vehicle. “Why are we here?”

 

“The hell,” Grimmjow scratches the back of his head and looks around, “I don’t remember this being so _empty_.”

 

Nel pulls out her gun from its holster, signaling for the others to do the same – she tosses one at Chad and pulls one strapped on Grimmjow’s back to hand it to Orihime. The woman hesitates, shakes her head furiously and takes it. Nel smiles softly; she remembers the day she first held a gun, remember how uncomfortable she felt even without firing at anything.

 

They’re all on edge thanks to their last encounter with bandits, ready to shoot if any threat appears. Out of the corner of her eyes, she notices all the vending machines are powered down as well as the bounty board. Nel tuts; she wanted to take on whatever they had, earn some money because they will definitely need it for later.

 

She walks ahead of them, notices an open door and walks into it, halting almost immediately as the sight of a dead caged man and a ton of blood covering the walls filled her vision. There’s a radio still on, playing some old time country song that she hates. Nel turns the thing off, muttering about bandits and their lack of consideration for her plans – and it doesn’t even matter if they had no idea Nel and the others were coming here, she’s still beginning to feel pissed off.

 

And yes, of course she feels bad for the man; she _does_ , his face is familiar probably because he is – well, _was_ – the owner of the motel and didn’t deserve what he got.

 

It’s just that a dead man isn’t on top of her priorities right now. There are people – _alive_ people – that need a place to shower and possibly, hopefully, rest.

 

“I don’t think the steam generator is working,” Chad mutters, looking up at the top of the generator, one hand over his eyes to cover them from the sun as she walks back to them. “It doesn’t seem to be moving.”

 

“Oh, crap,” Nel huffs, puts her hands on her hips in disappointment.

 

“So,” Grimmjow drawls out, his shoulder bumping on hers lightly. “What do we do now?”

 

Nel sighs, rubs her temple trying to figure out what to do; besides accepting some bounties for the money she wanted to stop and take a quick shower too, but with no energy to power up the place that was out of question. Unless…

 

“There’s a bunch of generators around here,” she turns to them, excitement on her face in hopes they would catch it too. “We can check out what’s wrong with this one and what’s missing and all we have to do is take it from the others!”

 

“Oh, joy, a scavenger hunt,” Grimmjow mutters.

 

Ichigo does a double take, mouth agape as he stares at what’s behind them, taking in the entire desert surrounding the area and the distance between the towers. He snaps back and looks at Nel, the incredulous expression on his face causing her to laugh.

 

“Hey, this isn’t the time to laugh!” Ichigo throws his arms up, flustered.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she’s giggling now, trying to suppress it the best she can. “Okay, so who agrees with my idea?”

 

With mumbles of approval, she nods and searches for a vehicle they could drive to the other generators – not theirs, not when it could be damaged if they run into trouble, not when at least two people should stay at the motel in case a psycho or marauder or any other kind of _annoyance_ decides to trash the van.

 

“Can someone check what pieces are missing?” she asks, shifts her hand to start up a motorcycle and failing – another unusable vehicle – and kicks it out of frustration.

 

“On it,” Grimmjow calls, Ichigo trailing right behind him and he glares over his shoulder. “What?”

 

Ichigo shrugs, unbothered. “Mechanic, remember? I can see what we need, it’s not a problem.”

 

She chuckles and goes back to her task. Chad and Orihime walk up to a car, helping to speed up the search, and Nel smiles, grateful. Those two have been mostly quiet so far, but refuse to sit down and let the others do all the work and she can appreciate that. She watches quietly as Orihime points to another motorcycle and Chad nods before sitting on it in hopes to start it up; at that, Nel goes back to her own vehicle, turning the keys one more time before giving up on this one.

 

An excited scream gets her attention and she jumps out of the car.

 

Orihime waves at her. “We found one, look!”

 

Nel’s grin is almost blinding.

 

**XXI.**

In theory, only two people can ride a bike – after all, it does have enough space for exactly that number, no more and no less.

 

In practice, well, that is also very much true. Doesn’t mean Grimmjow is happy about it.

 

Grimmjow curses Nel in his head as he feels Kurosaki’s hands tighten painfully on his shoulder at a sharp turn to avoid a spitter skag bent on attacking them.

 

She should’ve come with him instead of Kurosaki; she knows how he operates in battle, how he moves and attacks and retreats, she knows when he’s in trouble when he needs no help to defeat the enemy when he wants someone to back him up. She knows his ins and outs like no one else – because he hasn’t let anyone else get this close, and even though she paired him up with someone he’s not yet sure he can trust she has yet to make him regret his decision.

 

Now, _Kurosaki_ –

 

“Grimmjow, stop!” because of the wind he almost misses Kurosaki’s words and he slows their velocity down. “There’s one generator right over there. Come on, let’s go.”

 

“Who the fuck made you the leader,” Grimmjow mutters and catches his shotgun when Kurosaki throws it to him.

 

Kurosaki frowns at his comment but decides not to retaliate, and deep down Grimmjow is glad for it – _no need to be unnecessarily contradictory to everyone you don’t know too well just for the hell of it_ , his mind whispers and he grimaces, knowing fully well that it’s the truth even if he can’t help it sometimes, natural response kicking in too quickly to shut it down.

 

“Alright,” Grimmjow sighs, shakes his head in attempt to focus on their task instead of on his thoughts. “What should we get first?”

 

“Well,” Kurosaki sends him a small smile, though he can’t for his life figure it out why. “Out of the three, the easiest one to pick is the gearbox, so let’s take that.”

 

“Okay, sounds good to me,” Grimmjow shrugs, follows the man while looking around for skags or bandits or even both.

 

Kurosaki finds the gearbox easily enough and crosses it out of his mental list. One down, two to go. Grimmjow walks around the generator, trying to find a ladder so one of them can get the steam valve; no such luck, sadly, and he tells Kurosaki so.

 

“Damn,” Kurosaki crosses his arms, staring into the distance. “Can’t do anything about that, I guess we’ll have to drive to the other one _way_ over there.”

 

He follows the direction pointed by the man’s finger and huffs, not looking forward at all for all the driving.

 

Shoulders hunched, he says, “Well, let’s get going then. Don’t wanna waste too much time on this stuff.”

 

Next to him, Kurosaki nods in understanding.

 

_Huh_ , he thinks, maybe the guy isn’t as bad as he thought at first.

 

**XXII.**

The motel is eerily quiet, even when Orihime tries to strike up a conversation to lighten the mood. It may not look like it, but Chad is tense, as if waiting for someone, for something to attack them at any second, and she’s not sure he’s wrong on that. He tries to act stoic, like the fact they’re out in the open, vulnerable and with only one person used to handling guns and shooting to kill doesn’t throw him off.

 

A few steps away from them, Nel searches for anything that could be useful for them; mostly she opens boxes and looks into the rooms, but when she tries to open one of the doors and discovers it’s locked, she kicks it and shoves her shoulder against it before giving up, breathing heavily and–

 

“Wow,” Orihime’s mouth is open in wonder as she looks at the bright yellow coming from Nel’s tattoos.

 

The siren used her powers during the shootout from early, yes, but Orihime was too busy trying not to kill anyone while still keeping her friends save from the bandits to pay complete attention to the process. Now, though, she can look, now she can appreciate it in relative peace.

 

Her eyes widen as the door flings open, harshly and quickly, and smiles at the proud grin on Nel’s face as she walks in. Not long after that she comes out again, signaling them to come closer.

 

“What do you think she found?” she asks, looks up to Chad – he’s tall, so tall, and sometimes she wonders what it’s like to see that high.

 

Chad shrugs, not nearly as curious as she is. “Not sure.”

 

Orihime shakes her head, used to Chad’s quiet way. In a sense, it’s pretty calming; it makes her think about whether or not this is a family thing or if it’s just Chad – she’s met Chad’s _Abuelo_ , the man just as quiet as her friend. She takes a mental note to ask him about it later – the question just won’t get out of her mind if she doesn’t.

 

“Guys, come look at this,” Nel sounds excited and it’s instantly infectious because Orihime is smiling with enthusiasm before she even sees what it is. “Ta-da!”

 

Nel points out the big green chest to them with jazz hands, clearly happy about her discovery. The logo at the top tells them it’s a chest manufactured by Dahl and Orihime looks at the siren, confused.

 

“Yay, it’s a chest,” she tries to sound more eager, she really does, but she can’t understand what’s so great about a random Dahl chest, not when the corporation hasn’t been on Pandora for years now.

 

The amused chuckle coming from Nel is kind of unexpected, but nothing surprises her more than when the siren clicks on a button to open the chest and it displays four different types of guns, several kinds of ammo and a couple grenades for them.

 

Orihime covers her mouth, tries not to gasp so loudly. Chad’s eyes grow wide, not expecting that any more than Orihime had. Nel smiles, proud of her discovery and checks the guns, testing out how well they fit on her hands and assuming a wide stance as if there was a target to shoot.

 

Then she looks at them just to go right back to the weapons, eyes speculating something. Her pose is relaxed again and she lowers the gun she’s holding, excitement taking over her features.

 

“You know, this is actually perfect timing,” Nel says, taking a pistol out of the chest and walks up to them. “You two need to learn how to handle these things, you gonna need to from now on anyway.”

 

It takes a few seconds for Orihime to process that information, and she nods hesitantly, not particularly looking forward to those lessons. By her side, Chad simply hums in agreement, but he also doesn’t seem too eager for this either.

 

“Let’s take these babies outside,” Nel takes a pistol and a revolver, grabs ammo for both and leads them to the broken down bus near the motel. “I think this could work as a target replacement pretty well, right, guys?”

 

Orihime takes her time to reach her and Chad, and Nel is aware that she is nervous about this… practice session. Nel smiles fondly, presses one hand on her shoulder and tries to reach for Chad’s with the other one, settling for his arm instead, and she squeezes them, a comforting gesture they appreciate.

 

“We’ll start slow,” she declares, stepping away from them after handing out the guns. “There’s still some time until those two get back, so we don’t need to rush.”

 

**XXIII.**

The distance between one generator from another gives Grimmjow and Ichigo enough time to face a pack of skags and, not that further on, get ambushed by a small bandit group.

 

It’s not how Ichigo expected the rest of their day would be, but he guesses it _could_ be worse.

 

Grimmjow stops right in front of the tower, one leg on the ground to keep the motorcycle from falling as Ichigo hops off. He heads to the stairs, climbing quickly – the sooner they got what they need, the sooner they could go back to the rest of the group.

 

Midway through the climbing, he slaps his forehead, stares down and shouts at Grimmjow. “See if you can take the capacitor off this one. So, you know, we get to finish this faster and all.”

 

The man mumbles something he can’t make out, but does as Ichigo says. Ichigo starts to climb again. It’s a quick process, taking off the valve. The generator stops and he grimaces, hopes this one wasn’t powering anything too important. Then he gets down right in time for Grimmjow to wave the capacitor at him. He chuckles and opens his hand to take it, puts it inside his bag and hops on the bike after making sure nothing will fall out.

 

With the clutch lever pulled and the motorcycle put on the first gear, Grimmjow takes off quickly. Ichigo puts the bag on the space between them, figuring it would be safer than hanging around or behind him. Everything is a blur, unfortunately, so he can’t enjoy the almost tundra-like view on this side of Pandora.

 

So much for discovering what ‘the world out there’ looks like.

 

He doesn’t get much time to sulk after that; Grimmjow takes a sharp turn, straying from the path they took to get to the generator. Ichigo frowns, punches the man on the shoulder, lightly, trying to get his attention. The motorcycle slows down and Grimmjow stares at him, traces of annoyance already starting to show.

 

“What,” he practically snaps and Ichigo can feel his jawbone tighten in irritation from the vault hunter’s tone.

 

“The hell is with that attitude,” he complains and immediately continues so Grimmjow can’t respond. “And why aren’t we going back the way we came?”

 

Ichigo watches as Grimmjow grinds his teeth, rolls his shoulders; probably trying to calm down, which is something Ichigo can appreciate.

 

“I’m taking a shortcut,” he finally answers. “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to face more of those shitty skags.”

 

“What about bandits?”

 

Grimmjow laughs, tries to stop it by covering his mouth with his hand; Ichigo can’t find in himself to be angry for Grimmjow laughing at him, not when he knows it’s kind of a stupid question anyway. “Those guys are _everywhere_ , worse than roaches, I fucking swear.”

 

Ichigo hums, thinking back to stories he heard and, hell, even the ones he had to exchange bullets with since they left Sanctuary. Grimmjow looks at him, only a faint trace of amusement remains on his lips; he grabs the handles and raises one eyebrow. Ichigo nods and they’re running off again, this time into a cave.

 

The only warning he gets is Grimmjow’s _fucking nomads_ and they hop off the motorcycle, letting it crash into a big man. Ichigo loops the bag around his shoulder and picks up his pistol while Grimmjow is, as expected, ahead of him, blasting off a couple of psychos with his shotgun.

 

Above him there’s a blue light and he looks up, not able to contain himself even though more psychos and nomads gather around them. He frowns, wonders why a cavern would need electricity; a bullet passes by too close to his cheek and he admonishes himself mentally for not paying attention to what he needs to do. Grimmjow’s already killed at least five of them, kicking back what could be, _will_ be, his sixth.

 

“ _Gimme your damn loot!_ ” one of the guys – wearing a shield with a fucking midget psycho wrapped on the front – shouts to either him or Grimmjow and, well, thanks to the cacophony of sounds and blurred motions it’s hard to be sure who it is.

 

“Crap,” Ichigo mutters, aims at a psycho’s leg but misses, the damn guy dodging too quickly for his liking. “Aw, what the hell.”

 

He tries again, misses, spends another bullet, still doesn’t hit his target, then curses as he aims for the stomach.

 

That one he nails.

 

Grimacing, Ichigo looks around for the next man, he tries to keep tabs on where Grimmjow is, but it’s almost impossible when the vault hunter doesn’t seem too keen on work with him to get rid of these bandits.

 

_Stubborn idiot_ , he thinks; doesn’t get why Grimmjow won’t even try to cooperate in a moment like this. He takes down a nomad, worries about how many bullets he has left and gets a punch on his gut from thinking too much, shooting too little.

 

“ _Get ready for the bad touch!_ ”

 

The psycho giggles, bouncing back and forth as he taunts him; it riles him up and he’s not thinking when he punches the guy on the face, never mind he has a mask on. Out of stupid luck, the psycho falls back and Ichigo shoots both of his legs before running to cover behind a barrel.

 

“Shit, Kurosaki!”

 

Ichigo snaps his head on the direction of Grimmjow’s voice; he’s dealing with three nomads and an annoyingly quick psycho, and Ichigo runs without thinking about any kind of strategy, just tackles the shirtless man to the ground. He still doesn’t miss Grimmjow’s large eyes and the hint of disbelief in his laughter; it makes him blush as he knocks out the psycho and gets up to help him with one of the nomads.

 

“Can’t jump on these big ones,” Grimmjow seems positively amused by his tactics and he’s not sure if he likes that or not, so he glares at the vault hunter anyway. “What? It’s true; they’re too big and too heavy for that. Neither of us could do it.”

 

He doesn’t dignify Grimmjow’s comment with an answer, opting to walk backwards along him while shooting with all he’s got. It’s not a thrilling feeling that he has when he does it, but there’s no other way they can escape this situation now.

 

“Remind me to slap you in the head the next time you decide to take a _shortcut_ ,” Ichigo snaps, curses when the bullets ricochet off the enemy’s shield.

 

“Ha, this is nothing compared to the shortcuts Nel made me take,” Grimmjow quips, grabs a grenade and pulls out the pin with his mouth before tossing it. “We better get to cover now!”

 

That doesn’t need to be said twice to him, and they both jump over the remains of a car trunk in time. It’s louder than he expected, the explosion; Grimmjow is already back into action, taking on one of the two remaining nomads by himself while Ichigo scrambles to get up.

 

“ _Don't… scavenge… my stuff..._ ” Ichigo frowns at the odd choice of last words from the nomad.

 

Apparently the bonding moment is over now, with the vault hunter turning back to his lone wolf mode; Ichigo wonders if he’s like that with Nel too, or if it’s just because they don’t know each other that well yet. He really hopes it’s the latter, mostly for Nel’s sake.

 

It takes a while, but they manage to take the last guy down together, with Grimmjow shooting the nomad on his back while Ichigo acted as bait. _Midget lover_ is what the guy chooses to say to them before dying, spitting the words out with venom.

 

The smell of blood doesn’t make him that much uncomfortable anymore, even though it should – the blood itself is still troubling, though, so he feels relatively less shitty. There are new patches of it on him now, perfect to go with the ones that already turned brown. He sighs, drops his shoulders and checks on the bag again – if anything is missing no one will be able to take a shower, and right now he needs that urgently.

 

“Come on,” Grimmjow calls, snapping Ichigo out of his thoughts. He pulls the motorcycle up and sits on it, only waiting for him to catch up so they can go back to the others.

 

Ichigo hops on and they take off; the only sound that can be heard comes from the bike. Grimmjow was right, though, the shortcut really help them get to the Happy Pig Motel ridiculously quickly. The vault hunter throws a smirk in his direction and gets a middle finger and an unimpressed stare in return.

 

Sounds of gunshots have them dashing hastily to the motel, guns in hand ready to be used if anyone was in trouble.

 

What greets them is the sight of Nel positioning Inoue’s shoulders so she could handle the pistol in her possession better, have an improved aim so she wouldn’t need to spend too many bullets on her target.

 

With the threat of danger gone, they walk up to the other three, guns back where they were as if they didn’t panic with the shots. Chad waves his hand, greeting them back. Ichigo stands on his side, smacks his hand on his friend’s back as they watch Nel teach Inoue the tricks of firing a gun.

 

Grimmjow doesn’t join them, but also doesn’t get too close to the women in case something goes wrong – no one likes friendly fire. He’s probably glaring at the back of Nel’s head, Ichigo guesses, unable to see his face from where he is.

 

“So, productive afternoon?” Ichigo asks, keeping his eyes on the training class in front of them.

 

“Yes,” Chad looks at Ichigo’s bag for a moment. “How was yours?”

 

“Very, um…” he struggles with the right word to use, scratches the back of his head. “Action-packed, I guess, it’s the best way to describe it anyway.”

 

Chad laughs lowly, bringing a grin to Ichigo’s face. They stand there until Nel is done with her instructions.

 

Inoue is the first one to turn back and waves her free hand at them, happy with their safe return. Ichigo waves back while Grimmjow just nods, walking with Nel and joining him and Chad.

 

“Okay, great, we have everything that’s missing from that steam generator,” she points at the tower in question, her lips spreading into a sweet smile. “Who is going to put them into place?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm in nano hell save me pls
> 
> idk when i'll be able to post next but i hope y'all are still enjoying this!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess it's been a while since i've posted??? hope you guys are still enjoying this!

**XXIV.**

He can’t say it’s the best shower he’s had in a motel, but it _is_ a fraction better than the one back in Liar’s Berg.

 

Freezing temperatures never did go well with showers without hot water.

 

Grimmjow scrubs off the dirt as best as he can, glad that he doesn’t have to rush himself when there are other rooms with showers in them. He hums a tuneless song, washing his hair with soap thanks to the lack of shampoo – not that he minded too much, that stuff was almost at the bottom of his list of current necessary things to have.

 

He’s almost done when he hears a knock on the door, and he curses. “ _What_ now?”

 

“Uh,” it’s the woman’s voice, Orihime, if he can still remember people’s names, and she sounds hesitant. “Nel asked me to tell you to hurry up; she wants to talk to us.”

 

With a roll of his eyes, he shouts a _yeah, yeah_ and hears her footsteps fading as she walks away. When he’s done cleaning off the blood, Grimmjow reaches for the towel and quickly dries himself, puts on the fresh clothes he got from the van.

 

He’s the last one to finish the shower, he notes, but Nel doesn’t seem too mad that he took his time. He stands next to her, looks up to take in the stars, wondering when the night did come.

 

“I wanted to ask you guys what you all think about this before doing anything,” Nel starts, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “Right over there is a bounty board. I checked it already and there’s only one for us to take – if everyone is okay with that, of course.”

 

Grimmjow’s been on this for months now, so Nel knows his answer has been practically yes all the times they had to take a job. This one doesn’t seem too different; if Nel is up for taking the job it means he’s going to accept it too, whatever it is the person wants to be done.

 

The Sanctuary kids – _not kids, you’re the same age as them_ , he groans internally at his mind’s interruption – take a while to answer, but at the mention of their lack of funds and the rewards they could all get they seem to grasp the concept of needing money while traveling pretty quickly. Nel nods, satisfied, and walks over to accept the bounty job for them.

 

“We can do it tomorrow morning,” she says. “It’s too dark and we should probably rest.”

 

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Kurosaki stretches his arms, heading to one of the rooms.

 

While his friends follow him, Nel touches Grimmjow’s arm and he tilts his head, inquisitive.

 

“I know you didn’t want them coming with us,” she starts, squeezes his biceps too strongly – damn siren – to keep him from talking. “But I they’re good people and I think this is something we both need.”

 

She doesn’t elaborate and he doesn’t ask her to, knows what she means by it even though he’s not sure he can agree with her – he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want her to be right on this stance. His only response is to shrug, and thank fuck Nel knows his too well to understand he’s not mad, he’s not being a dick, nor he is dismissing her words.

 

“So how bad was it to be away from your favorite siren?” she jokes, but he hears the unasked question.

 

“Kurosaki’s not so terrible, I guess,” he gives that to her, because the man really isn’t, though he could do with some improvements, major ones actually, because Grimmjow sets his bar way too damn high when it comes to people fighting with him for their survival. “Can handle a gun pretty decently, thank fuck for that or I would probably have died and then I’d have to haunt to for the rest of your life for that.”

 

Nel slaps his arm playfully, chuckling with his answer. “Glad to see you’re getting along with other people.”

 

Grimmjow makes a face. “I wouldn’t say _getting along_ , but whatever makes you happy.”

 

“Aw, you considerate human being, you,” she knows it’s a half-lie, but he’s glad she doesn’t call him on that, preferring to move on. “Orihime and Chad are quick learners, by the way. A few more lessons and I’m sure they’ll be good to go. Don’t know how comfortable any of them will be with the whole killing thing, but as long as they can hurt the enemies I’m sure we can deal with that part.”

 

“When did you get this soft?” he snorts and Nel shoves him away, without real strength or anger though.

 

“No one should be so used to murder they don’t even think twice before pulling the trigger,” she mutters, hugging herself tightly.

 

Grimmjow sighs, runs a hand through his wet hair.

 

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” he ruffles her hair, trying to lighten the mood. She swats his hand away and smiles, grateful for the attempt. “Now come on, time for the siren to sing me to sleep.”

 

She tries to elbow him, laughing.

 

“Oh, shut up.”

 

“Hah,” Grimmjow bumps their shoulders together. “Never.”

 

**XXV.**

Skag meat is edible, yes, but it doesn’t mean the thing is tasty. There’s nothing else in the motel that looks good enough to eat, though, so Orihime doesn’t complain about their (lack of choice for) breakfast.

 

Nel waits until everyone finishes their food before picking up the ECHO device attached to the bounty board and hitting play.

 

“Hubert, you son of a bitch!” the voice coming from the ECHO log startles everyone with its loudness. “I know it was you who stole my sawblade launcher! You better show up at my doorstep tomorrow or I _will_ send someone after you – don’t think I don’t know where you’re hiding, bastard.”

 

The message ends there, the next one beginning soon after, the voice now calmer but definitely angrier, “Alright, whoever you are, I want you to head to Split Skull Bay and bring back this motherfucker called Hubert to me. I’m at the Mighty Garage, the one in The Dust. Asshole must be alive, by the way, in case you were looking for an excuse to be paid to kill.”

 

There’s a small static, and before anyone can open their mouth, the voice continues. “Oh, and if the idiot still has my sawblade launcher, bring it back to me, will you? I can give you something extra for that.”

 

Message finished, Nel turns the device back to her and starts clicking around, “Well, mission is pretty clear, and I’ll show you guys what Hubert looks like as soon as I find the picture they attached with the bounty.”

 

“So,” Kurosaki-kun drawls out the ‘o’, some quite close to confusion on his face. “Is this kind of request normal?”

 

“This one can be called normal, I guess,” Nel frowns, fingers flying through commands on the ECHO device. “We’ve gotten stranger jobs that make this one seem like a normal one anyway.”

 

“When you spend a week looking after larval varkids for a weird-ass ranch owner not many things are unusual after that,” Grimmjow looks vaguely green, as if reliving his memories. “Most underpaid job we took, too. Fucking waste of time.”

 

Kurosaki-kun looks mildly amused but also curious, probably hasn’t seen a varkid in flesh just like neither Orihime nor Chad have.

 

She’s excited to find out what else she hasn’t seen or heard about thanks to never leaving Sanctuary. A bit terrified too, of course, but her curiosity is bigger and makes her scared part easier to be ignored.

 

Nel nods absentmindedly and finally pulls up Hubert’s photo, urging everyone to get a closer look at the man. At the sight in front of her Orihime wonders why would a man like him need a sawblade launcher. He looks nothing like the bandits they’ve seen so far; his small frame and well treated hair, his lack of scars and lack of a killing intent on his eyes, all of these things screaming someone who didn’t belong in a dangerous place like this one.

 

He seems to belong to a city, comfortable and safe and bandit danger-free.

 

(So does she, Orihime realizes that, but for all the survival knowledge she has she’s smart enough _not_ to piss off someone who owned a sawblade launcher, especially not one with enough money to pay a stranger to punish the thief.)

 

“The Split Skull Bay isn’t a place we can walk unarmed, hoping to talk to the guy peacefully and take him to The Dust,” Nel informs as all of them get prepared, double-checking everything. “I’m sure we’ll see a lot of bandits around there, though I have no idea how this Hubert guy managed to stay there without getting blown up by one of those guys.”

 

“Maybe he’s wearing a psycho mask to fool them,” Grimmjow quips, his back leaning against the van, already waiting for everyone else.

 

“Don’t even joke about it,” she shoots him a disapproving glare.

 

“Oh, is that something that could happen?” Orihime asks, already working scenarios in her head to why someone would need to do that. Maybe it’s a gang thing?

 

“Maybe,” Nel shrugs, pulls the key from her pocket and walks to the driver’s side. “Wouldn’t rule out anything after all we’ve seen so far.”

 

“Should I even ask what the hell you two have met out there?” Kurosaki-kun half jokes, though curiosity in his eyes betray his attempt to act blasé towards Nel’s comment. She giggles.

 

“Honestly, you won’t even have to,” Grimmjow twists his body to face the back of the van, bearing an amused look on his face. “Either Nel or I – fuck, probably both of us – will tell you three all about the fucked up shit that Pandora has so everyone can come out alive from this vault hunting trip.”

 

“Everyone ready?” Nel asks, ready to turn the key. Chad nods while everyone else give an affirmative verbal answer. “Alright then, let’s hope this will be an easy one.”

 

**XXVII.**

Hubert’s hideout is, as expected, full of bandits – psychos, nomads and marauders happily living on the decrepit docks, makeshift wooden houses slotting together like in the slums.

 

Nel grinds her teeth and crosses her arms, tries to come up with an angle, a plan, anything that has a low percentage of failure to face them all. They haven’t been spotted yet, and there’s no need to rush since they don’t have a deadline for this capture – if whoever wants this Hubert guy delivered back to them didn’t need the service anymore, the bounty board wouldn’t have the request still up.

 

Because for once they can take their time, of course Grimmjow runs ahead without so much as a warning. She growls, trying to keep her hands from turning into fists, and follows him without double checking all of her guns.

 

“Reckless fool,” she mutters, grabs Grimmjow by the back of his shirt and brings them to a halt. They’re hidden by the house, but still close to hear two marauders talking. “Don’t take off on your own; we’re lucky no one saw us.”

 

Grimmjow shrugs her off, yet he looks chastised and that’s enough for her. “What’s the plan, then? It’s not like this won’t turn into a mess of bullets flying everywhere the second one of them spots us.”

 

“Wait, let me just –” she signals the other three to come closer before continuing. “Okay, there are way too many bandits here and I’m still not sure if you three are ready to face this much right now.”

 

“So what do you want us to do?” Ichigo asks, lowering his voice when a loud, _close_ laugh from one of the bandits.

 

Nel taps a finger on her chin. “Two of you should stay here to tie Hubert up after we grab and drag him to the van, so Grimmjow and I can still shoot anyone that tries to come after us.”

 

“Which means the last one will be on the van,” Grimmjow chimes in. “To open the door and let the van running, that kind of stuff. Gotta get out of here fast, these fuckers have the worst case of one-track mind I’ve ever seen.”

 

“I can stay here,” Ichigo quickly prompts.

 

Chad nods, which Nel takes as his way of saying he’ll stay with Ichigo. “Okay, so Orihime takes the van.”

 

Orihime nods and they take their positions, Nel and Grimmjow rush to take down the closest marauders. No guns used – not yet, not when they want to take down by surprise as many as they can before the dock turns into a chaotic impromptu fighting arena. They manage to keep that up for a couple more guys until one starts screaming, alerting the others.

 

“Split and search?” Grimmjow asks, brings up his weapon to shoot a nomad into the water. Nel nods, runs to the only boat there while Grimmjow starts upstairs.

 

It’s mildly inconvenient, yes, not having Grimmjow for backup and vice-versa, but they’ve done this before, when whatever they’ve been hired to find tops the need to stay beside one another for the sake of feeling safer.

 

She walks first to the small house near the boat – empty safe for two nomads.

 

“ _Freakin' witch thing!_ ” one of them calls from the ball of darkness he’s stuck and Nel smirks, shoots down the one who’s still on the ground before turning her attention back to him.

 

“When will you bandits come up with better stuff to shout?” she mutters and steps over the bodies and jumps into the boat, taking cover as a psycho shows up. “Would be great to hear something more original.”

 

“ _Karate chop!_ ” the psycho jumps and stands on a barrel, posing before going for an attack.

 

Nel sighs, closes her hand into a fist and the man is stuck in the air, kicking and trashing but getting nowhere.

 

“ _I can see forever!_ ” she rolls her eyes, opens a door and finds nothing again. Cursing, she moves him a few millimeters above the water and lets him out of the phaselock.

 

She’s not above giggling at the sight of a wet psycho.

 

As she heads towards the next set of houses close to the boat, she catches a glimpse of Grimmjow fighting a marauder and a psycho, handling himself as well as she expected. Grinning, Nel speeds up and shoves a psycho midget out of her way – the amount of bandits in the water keeps growing and she sighs, lamenting that she can’t stop and stare as they struggle back to the land.

 

The door opens and another goddamn psycho bursts out. Nel rolls her eyes, and then she notices what’s on his hand and–

 

“ _Pushing daisies!_ ”

 

The explosion is as sudden as the psycho’s appearance, and it ends just as quick. She manages to avoid getting caught; mentally thanks her siren’s powers not for the first time in her life.

 

Nel sighs, looks down at what’s left of the man and carefully avoids stepping on it. Head tilting to the side, she peeks inside and only finds a crate. After checking for bandits outside, she enters, fast because they have a job to do, and opens it.

 

A gasp escapes her lips, and trembling hands touch a Jakobs pistol. Somehow, at the back of her mind, she knows she’s seen it before, memories of sitting in front of the TV, watching gun commercials and sometimes series with weapon makers as sponsors. All she can think is how the pistol is way prettier live; it fits her hand like a glove, and she doesn’t have to think twice before taking it for her.

 

“It’s from the Judge series, _holy shit_ ,” Nel mutters, wonder in her voice and eyes; she thanks her past self for leaving extra space just in case she happens to find interesting loot.

 

Grimmjow is going to freak out – weirdo has a fascination with the Jakobs brand for some reason. Probably wanted to be a cowboy as a kid, and that is oddly cute and she’ll have to tease him for it at some point.

 

“ _Dunno who you are but die!_ ”

 

The marauder’s voice snaps her out of her mental notes and she scowls, phaselocks the man when he takes another step closer to her. Instead of shooting him, she takes off his mask, feeling disappointed the man behind the mask isn’t Hubert.

 

It’s not like it was a sure thing the man’s actually hiding behind a bandit mask, there was not a single proof that he’s managed to escape for this long with such a cheap trick. Shaking her head, Nel walks up the stairs two steps by time, counting how many houses are left on her side.

 

Three.

 

She breathes in heavily, eyes closed for a moment, then storms into the first one. Blinking, she stares at startled eyes and open mouth ready to scream. Nel muffles the man, turns her ECHO device on to compare if it really is him with the photo.

 

“Hah,” she gasps, brings the man up against his protests. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come with me, Hubert.”

 

“No! I don’t know who you are, but I sure as hell won’t go back to that fucking mechanic,” Hubert spits on the floor and Nel raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “It’s my design! I created it, the blueprints I have are the legit ones, not what that idiot has! The launcher is mine so I have all the right to keep it and there’s nothing that unimaginative piece of–”

 

It’s not a technique she uses regularly, but the man won’t shut up and he’s trashing around, trying to escape. So she does it, hits the butt of her pistol on his head, knocks him out. Stepping out of the room, she phaselocks the unconscious man to where Ichigo and Chad are and pats her hands.

 

Then she stops, throws her head back. “The launcher,” she mutters. “Why didn’t I ask him about the damn sawblade launcher?”

 

From where she is, Nel can see Grimmjow gritting his teeth, snarling at a psycho and with his back open to a marauder. There’s not time to shout a warning, so she pulls in as much power left she has and locks the bandit midair, getting a startled but thankful grin from her friend.

 

When they regroup, still fighting through a bunch of psychos, nomads and marauders, she takes the Jakobs pistol out and flashes it to Grimmjow. She laughs as his eyes shine; pulls away when he tries to reach it, and only when he starts to scowl she lets him touch it.

 

“Fuck,” he whistles appreciatively, tosses it back to her after a quick examination. “You’re goddamn lucky to find one of those. Pretty sure this series isn’t made anymore.”

 

She smiles, puts the pistol back. “Grimmjow,” he doesn’t turn to look at her, focused on shooting off a nomad’s shield. “Did you find the sawblade launcher? I got Hubert but it wasn’t there with him. I checked on the doors next to where he was, but there wasn’t anything there.”

 

Grimmjow shakes his head, reloads his shotgun and flashes smile to her before standing up, “I’m sure it’s here somewhere – let’s keep looking, alright?”

 

“Yeah, let’s,” Nel gets up herself, shoots the nomad on the foot.

**XXVIII.**

The Dust is filled with gangs trying to off each other while driving vehicles that have been modified to have the most diversified armaments Ichigo has seen, and it makes sense to him now, the reason someone would need a sawblade launcher.

 

One of the vehicles – _not one of these_ _fucking Bandit Technical cars again_ , Grimmjow snarls – flies by them, throwing explosive barrels to another one a few miles away from where they are, not to mention whoever is driving manages to scrape the van’s painting. Nel scowls while Grimmjow throws the middle finger at the driver, a plethora of curses flowing out of his mouth with unbelievable ease.

 

Nel rides them off the poor excuse of a road; Hubert, still with his hands tied on his back, gets thrown off the seat and grunts. Chad picks him up, lips slightly turned up and Ichigo chuckles. At the corner of his eye he notices flames going up, and Nel says it means they’re approaching the garage.

 

They get out of the van; Hubert walking between Grimmjow and Chad to a man Ichigo figures is the one who wanted his sawblade launcher back. He’s got a mean glare on his face that makes Hubert flinch and try to escape for the first time after they tied him up. When he looks at the group, though, he smiles appreciatively.

 

The first thing Ichigo notices, though, is his brightly pink mohawk.

 

“Hey,” the man waves; his other hand holds an wrench, so he was probably working on a car. “So you all managed to bring this piece of shit to me, huh. That’s cool; thank fuck someone finally did it.”

 

He lets out a relieved sigh, and walks to the garage, signaling them to do the same.

 

“You can call me Bazz-B, by the way,” he says, turning his head back with a grin. “By the way, did _he_ still have my launcher?”

 

Bazz-B says _he_ like one normally says scum; Ichigo wonders what else Hubert has done to be called like that.

 

“He did,” Nel answers, she and Grimmjow being the only ones not in awe with the place. “It’s on the van. I’ll get it for you.”

 

“Oh, sweet,” Bazz-B nods, rubs his hands together and walks around, searching for something. Nel walks out. “I’ll give you the money in a sec, let me just find your extra payment.”

 

Grimmjow leads Hubert to a wall, pinning him into place with just his stare while they all wait for the reward. Inoue looks a bit uncomfortable with everything happening, but she keeps silent and tries her best to act like she’s not bothered.

 

She’s always been the strongest in unfamiliar situations.

 

“Ah, yes, I think this is a good extra for the sawblade launcher,” Bazz-B talks mostly to Grimmjow; he probably has already noticed the other three not only aren’t experienced vault hunters, they also aren’t used to how things work in the lowest places in Pandora.

 

Sanctuary wasn’t a safe haven, of course, but nothing could compare to what they’ve seen so far.

 

Grimmjow’s eyes widen with glee and he grins like someone’s given him the best gift he ever wanted, but he doesn’t reach for the gun on Bazz-B’s hand. “Holy shit, how did you manage to find one of these?”

 

Ichigo recognizes the mark – a Dahl Anaconda. If he has to choose a weapon brand, that has to be it; being one prone to shake when holding a gun, Dahl guns have the most amazing accuracy he’s seen.

 

Giggling with excitement, Bazz-B plays with the gun in his hand. “Some poor son of a bitch tried to rob a friend of mine while I was visiting,” He says, eyes glancing over Hubert before continuing. “This is all that’s left of him; courtesy of my friend too, of course.”

 

The room gets uncomfortably silent after that, and the terrible thought of what Hubert’s fate could be makes Ichigo feel a bit sick. He shares a look with Inoue and Chad, then carefully glances at Grimmjow, needing to know his reaction.

 

The thin line of his lips and crossed arms and twitchy metal fingers are the only telling signs that Grimmjow is probably not as comfortable with that as he looks like, which is surprising to Ichigo, really. He’s seen the vault hunter kill several bandits since they’ve left Sanctuary, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think Grimmjow wouldn’t be one to care about death.

 

Hell, just to get to Hubert he’s seen Grimmjow – Nel too, actually – kill several of them without batting his eyes. Maybe they’re not as okay with it as Ichigo thought.

 

“Whoa, you three really are new at this,” Bazz-B notes and yet, incredibly, he’s not mean or judgmental on his observation, just mostly surprised. “Look, I’ve never been outside The Dust, so who knows what it’s like where you came from, but around here you’ve got to be smart enough to not get killed. Especially now, with these two gangs fighting each other, pissing all over the place so they can say they own it. I don’t like the way this shit works, but I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

 

“Oh, so are you…” Inoue starts, loses courage to continue while Nel comes back with the launcher, handling it to Bazz-B.

 

“Damn, it’s kind of trashed. Ah well, I can still make do with it,” he glares at Hubert before turning to Inoue with a smile. “And if your question was if I’m with one of the gangs, then nope, I’m not. Someone around here has got to be the neutral party. Plus, I’m the only one who can fix up and mod their cars, so I don’t have to worry about attacks… _much_. The money I get from this helps a lot, too. Puts food in my stomach and all, so I can’t complain much.”

 

“Oh,” It’s all Inoue manages to say, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it.

 

“So where’s our payment?” Nel asks, following Bazz-B when he motions for her to do so.

 

He transfers the promised amount and hands the gun over to Nel, who smiles and nods, turning back to them.

 

“You guys seem pretty cool, even if most of you are still a little too green, but,” he takes out his ECHO device, tapping on it quickly. “I’ll give you guys my number if you need help with anything, or, if you end up needing more money – and, no offense, but you guys look like you will –, I always have more jobs to offer. Hubert here isn’t the first stupid dickbag to try and fuck me and my boss out of business, and he sure won’t be the last.”

 

Nel exchanges a look with Grimmjow before turning back to Bazz-B, grinning. “Sure, why not? Give me your info.”

 

Bazz-B quickly gives her all the information she needs before turning to Hubert.

 

“Gerard wants to have a _word_ with you once he’s back from his deal.”

 

Hubert turns as white as a sheet.

 

**XXIX.**

They part ways soon after that, leaving Hubert to his fate.

 

Grimmjow doesn’t want to think about it much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are more than welcome!! also english is not my first language so if i made any mistakes pls tell me so i can fix it!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for taking so long to update! hope y'all will enjoy this chapter C:

**XXX.**

It’s quiet in the van, with the radio turned off and Nel still driving them to where her friend is. Ichigo has no idea where they are now, but from the window he can see giant spiders running to the side so they’re not run over.

 

From where he’s sitting he can see Grimmjow’s profile, playing with the gun Bazz-B gave him, and Ichigo’s thoughts have been nagging him since they left the Mighty Garage. He’s not sure this is the right moment to ask what he wants to know; he’s not even sure Grimmjow would feel inclined to answer him, after all.

 

He keeps staring, though, watching as Grimmjow feels the weight of the gun, traces the brand design carefully, tosses it from one hand to another quickly. It’s almost a hypnotic sight, really, but it also makes Ichigo wonder how long Grimmjow has been using weapons to the point he’s this comfortable with them.

 

Ichigo’s main job is to repair them, yes, and he can recognize a good gun when he sees one, but until now he only shot fake targets, all set up by Nanao. And he’s never thought about her vault hunter days, never asked what she had to face – _kill_ – during her journey to find a vault. He thinks about the box and tries not to think of the implications.

 

“Hey,” Nel startles him out of his thoughts, and he thanks her mentally for that. “Is anyone hungry? We’re close to a place where we can grab something.”

 

“What, we’re still too far from your buddy?” Grimmjow lets the gun fall on his lap, crosses his arms and sulks – almost like a kid would.

 

“Tomorrow we’ll reach The Overlook, where my friend is,” she answers, slows down the velocity as she waits for anyone to manifest themselves. “ _Well_ , anyone hungry? After that stop there’s nothing else until we reach the city.”

 

“We can stop,” Chad says.

 

Nel grins at him through the rearview mirror and nods, stepping on the accelerator.

 

Ichigo wouldn’t call the place a restaurant, mostly because all it had was a sign telling to get your food there and a guy with a bored look on his face, as if he’s rather be anywhere but where he is at the moment. The man didn’t look like he enjoyed flipping burgers to, well, whoever his usual clientele was, at least if Ichigo’s assumption just by the man’s disgusted expression is correct.

 

The man sneers when Nel walks up to him, but she’s not fazed by his attitude at all. She orders for all of them – it’s not like there’s an extensive menu for them to order from. It’s just the burger, and Ichigo’s hunger is the only thing keeping him from asking what kind of meat did the guy put in their food.

 

Thanks to the lack of chairs or any other object good enough to sit on, not to mention the owner’s lack of friendliness, they end up eating in the van, with Nel already driving off without waiting for them to finish.

 

“Well, it’s not like anything I’ve ever tasted,” Inoue says, somehow managing to say it in a positive way, an impressive feat on its own. “You must’ve travelled a lot to know things like that, right?”

 

“Yeah, we’ve been here and there,” though Nel keeps driving ahead, turning left or right at certain moments, she manages to spare some glances at Grimmjow, her look similar to one of concern whenever she did that. “Though this is the first time I’m going to my friend’s town.”

 

“Wait, then how do you know where we’re going?” Ichigo frowns, scratching at the side of his face.

 

“She’s got a map for that,” Grimmjow looks – and _sounds_ – disinterested. He’s leaning on the window again, like he’s done a thousand times by now. He doesn’t seem to be actually paying attention to the scenery – not that Nel would reprimand him for it, Ichigo guesses.

 

“Oh,” he says.

 

“Yeah,” Grimmjow mutters while looking at him, and what should sound like sarcasm or even disdain just comes out tired. A soft _thud_ indicates his head is back at resting on the window.

 

Ichigo wonders how many miles they’ve travelled already, how is everyone back in Sanctuary, when would be the best time to call just to let his family know he’s okay, they’re okay.

 

The sun sets while he’s not looking, somewhere between being lost in his thoughts and making idle conversation with everyone. He doesn’t see any resemblance of civilization, just a vast nothing with caves and mountains and rocks here and there.

 

 _Sleeping on the van it is, then_ , he thinks. Thank Urahara for building them a big one with enough space for that.

 

“We should take turns sleeping,” Grimmjow says. “It’s the middle of nowhere, anyone and anything can attack us no matter how good of a hiding spot you managed to find, Nel.”

 

Nel nods, looks at everyone, considering something. “The best way would be at least two people for turn, help one another stay awake and one can fight whatever comes at us while the other wakes up everybody else.”

 

“That’s a good idea,” Inoue smiles, tiredness making it less shining than usual. “Who will take the first turn?”

 

“Chad?” Nel calls, already stepping off the vehicle. “Are you awake enough to watch over with me?”

 

“I can go,” he answers, already following her outside, both sitting atop of the van.

 

It’s quiet when they leave.

 

**XL.**

It’s starry outside and she likes it.

 

She squints her eyes while looking up, trying to figure out whether or not she learned the name of the constellations when younger before deciding that the answer didn’t really matter. Not if she’s not going to remember the important things anyway.

 

At her side, Chad is quiet, arm resting on his knee as he looks straight ahead. She sighs, the hand holding the pistol tightening the grip. She watches the vast nothingness with extreme attention, hoping for nothing to come up.

 

“Hmm,” Chad shifts, sits cross-legged, and she turns to look at him, curious. “Have you been doing this for long?”

 

“Oh, what, the vault hunting thing?” Nel stops, knows that’s what he’s asking but waits for him to nod. “I think… almost a year now.”

 

She catches as his normal expression turns into an impressed one for a few seconds, eyebrows higher than normal and wide eyes glinting in the night. She giggles. “Thought we’ve been doing this for longer than that, right?”

 

He nods, a little embarrassed. “I haven’t met many vault hunters, but you and Grimmjow act like the ones that have been on this business for at least three, four years. You two look experienced enough.”

 

“Oh,” she’s not sure what to say to that. “Thank you?”

 

Chad shrugs, still staring at what’s in front of them. “It’s the truth.”

 

Nel chuckles, notices this has been the most she’s heard him speak. And, unsurprisingly, things stay silent after that, only the wind making itself be heard. She decides Chad’s good company, quiet but not uncomfortably so, tall and strong enough to scare off most bandits even if she knows he’s the least threatening between the two of them.

 

Time passes, and she’s fighting against the tiredness, head falling without her permission and snapping back up because she needs to stay alert for one more hour before they can wake up the others. She hums, not really paying attention to the tune or which song she chose, just doing something to distract herself from closing her eyes and falling asleep.

 

Chad’s voice, thankfully, snaps her out of the almost sleep trance. “How long have you two been close to Sanctuary?”

 

“Couple weeks,” she answers, rubbing her eyes. “Why?”

 

For a few seconds, he doesn’t say anything, until–

 

“You and Grimmjow worked for Hyperion,” it’s not a question, Nel knows this.

 

She braces her arms around her knees, fingers digging deep on her skin. Of course someone would figure it out, all it takes is a little thinking and the dots are connected. She’s heard the rumors, she knows it’s not that hard to figure out where they were from.

 

“Yes,” she whispers, not wanting to think of how this will change everything. “Is that a problem?”

 

“No, just makes me curious to why you did what you did,” Chad shakes his head, sits upright. “You two have your reasons, though I won’t pry on what they are.”

 

She nods, sighs in relief. Chad is more perceptive than she predicted, smarter than she gave him credit for, though as polite as she thought he would be.

 

“Come on,” she stands, smiles at the starry, beautiful sky. “Let’s wake up the others and get some well-deserved sleep.”

 

“Yes.”

 

**XLI.**

Jaegerjaquez-san doesn’t sit on the top of the van with Orihime and Kurosaki-kun; says he’s going to look ahead and if he doesn’t come back in ten minutes then they should wake Nel and Chad and either look for him or keep driving. And he may say it in a voice that screams he doesn’t care which option they choose, but his eyes, his movements, his hesitation, all of those things say otherwise.

 

Two minutes in, she asks. “Should… shouldn’t we go after him? I don’t think we should be separate like this, but he ran before I could say anything.”

 

Kurosaki-kun nods, though his face is twisted in a frown.

 

“We should, but if we leave then there’s no one to look out for bandits while Nel and Chad sleep,” his shoulders are sagged, defeated as if he’s been thinking about it for a while – and he might as well have, if she knows him as well as she think she does. “And I don’t want to wake them up, not when they’ve just finished their turn.”

 

Orihime looks at her lap, hands twisting the fabric of her shirt.

 

“I can go after him,” she says, watching as Kurosaki-kun’s head snaps to her face. “And you stay so they can sleep safely.”

 

“Are you sure? I can go and you can stay,” he offers, the idea of more of them splitting up not being a favorable one. “It’s no trouble.”

 

She shakes her head. “No, I can go. Either way the danger is the same, isn’t it?”

 

Kurosaki-kun scratches the back of his head, still not completely convinced. She smiles, her attempt to reassure him she’ll be fine; she knows how to take care of herself. Besides, it doesn’t look like anyone is near them, so she’s sure she’ll be safe.

 

“Okay,” he relents, a soft sigh leaving his mouth. “But if you don’t come back in five minutes I’ll wake them up and we’ll go search for you two.”

 

“Alright,” she jumps off the van, filled with energy, and walks in the same direction Jaegerjaquez-san went.

 

“Inoue,” He calls, making her stop and turn around. “Be safe, okay? Don’t do anything dangerous. Well, _too_ dangerous I guess.”

 

She giggles and nods, follows the vault hunter’s trail.

 

To her surprise, it doesn’t take long for Orihime to find him. He’s sitting on a rock, tapping the new gun against his thigh without a proper rhythm as he searches for any kind of suspicious movement.

 

Jaegerjaquez-san is a very quiet person, Orihime muses, but not in the way Chad is. It’s not calmness what she sees when she looks at him; there’s only the storm.

 

She approaches slowly, careful not to startle him. He snaps his head towards her when she gets too close for his liking, but doesn’t yell or curse or gets violent with her. All she gets is a head tilted to the right, and eyes filled with unasked questions, more curious than angry.

 

“Oh, right,” Orihime shakes her head, steps closer to him and smiles. “Why don’t you come back and stay with us by the van, Jaegerjaquez-kun?”

 

All she gets is a blank stare in response.

 

“Um, Kurosaki-kun and I would feel much better if you were there with us.”

 

Nothing, no words, no gestures, not a single reply even to make sure he understands her. Orihime huffs and crosses her arms, not quite yet frowning.

 

“This is not how Nel said the shifts should be,” at the mention of the other vault hunter’s name, Jaegerjaquez-kun finally has a response. “I think she would be mad at you for not following what we all agreed on.”

 

Grimmjow groans and Orihime smiles, knows he’s been defeated.

 

“Jeez, fine, I’ll go back if you two miss me that much,” he always talks a little too harshly, but it never sounds like he intends to hurt on purpose. She covers her mouth to suppress a chuckle.

 

Finally he stands up, huffing in annoyance as he walks back without waiting for her.

 

She’s right behind him, after all.

 

**XLII.**

 

Grimmjow had not gone to a location further away from them to check on potential enemies, no matter how much he’d like that to be true.

 

He just doesn’t know how to handle anyone who isn’t Nel.

 

Plus, there’s something about a gun taken as an exchange for a man’s (potential) death that doesn’t sit well with him, and he’d rather not let the others know.

 

Shaking his head, Grimmjow forces the thoughts away from his head and focuses only on the sound of the Inoue’s footsteps.

**XLIII.**

Inoue comes back with Grimmjow quicker than Ichigo expected, but he’s glad nonetheless, even if the man looks like Grimmjow would rather stay where he was than with them.

 

And that annoys Ichigo a little, yeah.

 

They may not be used to shooting living beings – to injure only, not to kill, _never_ to kill – but that doesn’t mean they’re totally useless against bandits or skags or anything else that can come their way. And he wants to tell Grimmjow that, he really does, but there are more important things at the moment and there is something else he wants to know before he screams at the guy for acting the way he is right now.

 

He huffs as Grimmjow joins them at the top of the van, still choosing to sit as far as he can from them. Inoue sits next to Ichigo, giving him a small smile.

 

“I tried my best to have him sit with us, but…” she trails off, looking at Grimmjow’s back with regret.

 

“Nah, it’s okay,” he says, following her gaze. “At least he’s back here, not by himself and in possible danger.”

 

She nods, turns to him and her smile is a lot brighter, feeling slightly better about not being able to make Grimmjow turn into someone more sociable when he’s around them. Ichigo frowns, still staring at the vault hunter. He’s still playing with the gun, this time tossing it from one hand to another like a juggler.

 

They don’t sit in a comfortable silence, but it’s not an unbearable one either. It still bothers him, though, so he stands up and stops by Grimmjow’s side, waiting for the man to look up.

 

And he does, eyebrows drawn together in mild annoyance. “What?”

 

“Are you really going to sit by yourself?” it’s not the question he wants to ask, but he’s also not in a rush to get straight to the point.

 

“Been working out just fine so far,” Grimmjow shrugs lazily, puts the gun on his lap and rests his hands on the ceiling of the van, head turned forward.

 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. “You can still cover that direction from where we are.”

 

“The fuck is the difference between sitting here and there,” He mutters, stretches his neck and earns a loud _pop_ doing it.

 

“Well, not much, but–”

 

“I’m okay right here,” Grimmjow cuts him off, and if Ichigo wasn’t paying attention he probably wouldn’t have noticed the man cringe. He sighs, standing up. “Alright, whatever, I’ll sit with you guys. Though only because Nel will yell at me if I refuse to get used to you or something like that.”

 

Shooting an amused look, Ichigo extends his arms so Grimmjow can lead the way, following him right after. It’s true what Grimmjow said – there wasn’t much difference from where he was to where they all are now, but it’s easier to tell if one of them start to fall asleep if everyone is close by.

 

The silence stretches between the three of them again, only the sound of crickets and the wind making themselves known. Inoue seems more awake than he feels, more focused than he can bring himself to be, and he wishes he had tried to sleep properly when Nel and Chad were still on the lookout.

 

Rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms, Ichigo shuffles. He tries to find a more comfortable position – preferably one that also prevents him from falling asleep – and stifles a yawn. He scratches the back of his head, leaving his hair looking even messier than usual, and stares at the sky.

 

It’s the sound of Grimmjow’s finger tapping on the gun that catches his attention.

 

“What’s so special about this gun?” he asks. He saw the gun earlier, and besides being an old model that isn’t fabricated anymore, there’s nothing else worthy of spending this long messing with it.

 

“Huh?” Grimmjow looks like he’s been snapped out of some weird hypnosis; takes a while to process the question. He shrugs. “Nah, nothing really.”

 

“Oh,” Ichigo’s shoulders drop a little, disappointed he wasn’t looking at a unique gun that has never been in Sanctuary. “The way you’ve been looking at it made me think it was.”

 

“It’s just a regular gun,” Grimmjow mutters, squints at the weapon. “Does what every other gun does, nothing special with this one.”

 

“Kurosaki-kun is right, though,” Inoue chimes in, the faint traces of a frown on her face barely noticeable in the dark. “You _have_ been staring at it a lot; ever since we left the Mighty Garage, actually.”

 

Grimmjow huffs, one of his hands stroking his temples slowly, like he’s got a migraine. “What’s your point?”

 

“You’re acting strange,” Ichigo says; he levels his gaze with Grimmjow’s when the man drops his hand. “What happened?”

 

“The fuck makes you so sure I’m acting strange? We haven’t known each other for more than a couple days,” Grimmjow doesn’t alter his voice, doesn’t speak louder nor lower, and he looks away from them.

 

“Sure, that’s true,” Ichigo concedes, trying to find a way to vocalize the question that’s been nagging him since he saw that weird expression on the vault hunter’s face. “But it doesn’t take much to notice when someone is acting weird.”

 

Grimmjow snorts, refusing to say anything else.

 

Ichigo rolls his eyes, presses further. “Seriously, you’ve been like this since that Bazz-B guy told how he got that gun.”

 

Grimmjow’s hands twitches. No other reaction comes from him, though. Ichigo sighs, shares a look with Inoue and she shrugs, offering him a small smile.

 

“Okay, you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t say anything else,” Ichigo says, though he’s clearly still wondering what made the vault hunter start acting so strangely.

 

Rubbing his eyes, Grimmjow mutters a curse, stares at them with a grimace. “Look, what that guy’s friend did was fucked up, alright? Killing someone like that. Shit like that bothers me,” he waits for one of them to say something, sighs when he realizes they won’t. “That’s all I have to say, you two satisfied now?”

 

“But…” Inoue hesitates; she seems uncertain of what to say next, looks at Ichigo for help.

 

“What?” Grimmjow doesn’t really bark at them, but comes close to. The hand that’s not holding the gun twitches, a sign Ichigo can only interpret as nervousness.

 

“It’s just,” Ichigo swallows hard, winces before he continues because he’s sure there isn’t a better way to put it. “You kill too, don’t you?”

 

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he snaps, clearly offended at the unspoken comparison. Ichigo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back down; he’s not afraid, just regretful of his word choices. Inoue bites her lower lip, worried. “I’m – I’m not – What, do you think killing is something I do for shits and giggles?”

 

“I didn’t–”

 

“I don’t do it because I feel like it,” Grimmjow mutters, avoids looking at them, rather staring at what’s in front of them, doing what they were all supposed to while Nel and Chad slept. “If you two haven’t noticed, the guys we ran into always shot the first bullet at us, and running away all the time doesn’t work for too long – Nel and I tried when we got here, so it’s not bullshit what I’m saying.”

 

No one says anything after that. Grimmjow doesn’t seem inclined to share anything else; Ichigo and Inoue don’t feel like it’s their place to prod. She mumbles an apology and the man shrugs, acts as if he didn’t say a single word to them.

 

Ichigo hopes the uneasiness won’t be there in the morning; this kind of sentiment won’t do any of them any good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are always welcome btw!! they make me very happy and more likely to continue this


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter for y'all! hope u will enjoy it :D

**XLIV.**

The van isn’t the most uncomfortable place Nel has slept on so far by miles, so she doesn’t bother on complaining about the hard floor. Not that she feels inclined to get used to sleeping on things that make her back hurt in the morning, but if she keeps whining every time they don’t meet her standards the real complaints won’t have as much impact.

 

Nel stretches her arms, stifles a yawn with her hand and walks out, ready to call the other three. The sooner they start driving the sooner they can reach their destination.

 

Ichigo and Orihime are sitting huddled together, shoulders touching as they sleep – and Nel’s sure she can hear Ichigo’s soft snore from where she is. Grimmjow is next to Ichigo, far enough so they don’t have to touch but close enough for Nel to feel glad her friend isn’t excluding himself on purpose.

 

She smiles and climbs up to them. “Good morning, you sleepyheads.”

 

Grimmjow grunts, frowning. She sighs; of course the man has to seem grumpy all the time, no matter how’s he feeling.

 

“Hitting the road already?” he asks, rubbing one eye as he gets up.

 

The other two stir in their sleep and get up as well, mumbling their good mornings while climbing down.

 

“Yep,” there’s an emphasis on the _p_ and she grins at him, points one finger down. “If you’re feeling awake enough, want to drive for a while?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” he drops down, metal hand massaging his wrist. “You have to give me directions, though. I have no fucking clue where we’re going.”

 

Nel laughs, catches up to him. “I thought that was a given.”

 

Grimmjow snorts, bumps their shoulders together and hops on the driver’s side. “Alright, everyone’s good to go?”

 

**XLV.**

Reaching the town doesn’t take too long, thankfully, because Orihime’s sure everyone is extremely hungry – she hopes there won’t be any more skipping breakfasts in the future.

 

The Overlook is, in many ways, different than Sanctuary. It’s smaller and with much less people walking outside, most likely due to Hyperion setting an outpost close to them, on top of a cliff. Orihime gathers that most people must have fled when they could, so they wouldn’t be on Hyperion’s grasp.

 

Grimmjow walks in tense, his grip on the shotgun stronger than usual and his head turning every way possible, as if waiting for something or someone jump on them.

 

Nel is just as tense, but she hasn’t taken out any of her guns, though she wouldn’t need them right away if a surprise attack happened, not with her siren powers, Orihime muses. She also manages to hide it better than Grimmjow, the only telling sign being her hands – turned into fists, nails digging harshly on her skin.

 

Orihime shares a look with Kurosaki-kun; he nods at the vault hunters, one eyebrow raised; the questioning expression on his face matching the one in hers. Chad hums, his eyes casually glancing to the sides.

 

Stopping, Nel activates her ECHO device. “Hey, Cirucci? We just got here, but I don’t know where your place is.” as the person on the other side replies, she nods. “Okay, thank you. See you soon!”

 

Nel turns to them, says her friend’s house is pretty close and they follow her. She knocks on the door and they’re greeted by a very beautiful woman – in Orihime’s opinion, of course – even though she’s not sporting the friendliest of expressions.

 

It fades away as soon as her eyes land on Nel, and the siren is quickly pulled into a hug. At Orihime’s side, Grimmjow snorts and rolls his eyes; Cirucci snaps at him, narrowing her eyes before pulling away from the hug.

 

“How come you’re still hanging out with this walking mess of a hunter?” she asks Nel, knocking one hand on Grimmjow’s metal arm. Grimmjow steps away from her, holding onto his arm and glaring, but she just chuckles. “Just checking if it’s still good for use. Starrk doesn’t live here so you can’t keep breaking it all the time, honey. Traveling all the way to Lynchwood from here takes some time, in case you weren’t aware.”

 

“Didn’t know you cared so much, Sanderwicci,” Grimmjow brings his metal hand to his chest, faking the wonder in his voice. Cirucci watches, a semblance of an amused smile showing whether she’s conscious about it or not.

 

It’s only then that she notices the other three. “Oh,” she looks at them up and down, eyes calculating. “New people. Great. Well, I think it’s better if we go inside now.”

 

**XLVI.**

 

Sanderwicci hasn’t changed much, Grimmjow muses. The woman’s still insufferable, still friendly towards Nel and on the fine line between amicable banter and straight-up shit talking with Grimmjow.

 

He’s impressed, though he would never admit it out loud – and especially not to _her_ –, that she chose to live here when Hyperion might as well be right at her doorstep with how close the outpost is to the town.

 

She points them to the chairs and sofa for them to sit and walks to another door. The smell of coffee fills the air and he resists the urge to groan in appreciation. Sometimes Sanderwicci could act like a proper, decent host, he figures.

 

Most of them take a mug for themselves – and Sanderwicci smirks when he grabs one too, and he doesn’t know what she means by that –, Orihime and Kurosaki politely refusing what would be the best coffee of their goddamn lives.

 

Not that the woman needed to know how much he appreciated her coffee-making skills.

 

“Ugh, I wanted to tell you _so many_ things,” she whines, falling next to Nel on the couch and resting her head on the siren’s shoulder, crossing her legs. “But I know you guys are in kind of a hurry, racing for the vault and all.”

 

Nel chuckles, though Grimmjow doesn’t know why, and takes a sip from her mug. “If the guys don’t mind, you could at least tell us what Hyperion is doing here of all places.”

 

Unsurprisingly, the others are more than happy to know anything they can about that. Grimmjow too, of course, but only so he’d know whether or not some Hyperion douche would be trouble for him and Nel. The chances that they will are high in Grimmjow’s opinion; he’s sure Aizen put up wanted posters in Helios as well back when he sent them to every place he could reach in Pandora.

 

“There isn’t much of a story behind that, but fine, I’ll tell you what I know,” Sanderwicci shrugs, lifts her head from Nel’s shoulder and sits properly, eyes glinting with excitement. “Those jackasses showed up a couple months ago, acting all high and mighty – you know, the typical stuff – and some bots built the outpost faster than the people here hoped. Didn’t take long for mostly everyone leave town. Too scared of them and all, you know.”

 

She stops to take a sip, and Grimmjow sits at the edge of his chair. “Anyone important working up there or just the usual minions?”

 

Holding the mug on her lap, she frowns, bites her lips as she tries to remember anyone that could be of importance. She gasps, eyes widening.

 

“I saw Tousen on the first weeks after construction was done,” she looks back and forth at Nel and Grimmjow, taking in their reactions. “Not sure if he’s still here, though.”

 

Nel nods, her lips thin. “Well, that’s good to know. Do you have any idea what they are searching here?”

 

“Oh, yes. Maybe it will be of more use for you, because it doesn’t really matters to me,” she starts, shrugging. “There’s some kind of mineral – or was it a rock? Anyway, that’s what they’re extracting here. No idea what they’re gonna use it for, though.”

 

“Guns, probably,” Grimmjow finishes his mug and gets up, intent on getting himself more coffee. “Anything that helps those bastards control Pandora is what they’ll use whatever they’re digging here for.”

 

Kurosaki frowns, taking in the information Sanderwicci provided them. “Why do this now, though?” at the woman’s arched eyebrow, he continues. “Hyperion has been drying Pandora out of resources for several decades, it’s practically impossible they didn’t know about this one before.”

 

“Kurosaki-kun is right,” Orihime nods, her face serious, more than Grimmjow has seen her be so far. “Hyperion is not the kind of company that only goes to another mineral or rock resource after their current one has nothing else to give them.”

 

“Nothing we can do about it,” Grimmjow shrugs, sits back on his chair with a mug full of coffee. “Either way, it’s not like we’re going to raid the place and shut down whatever they have going on in there.”

 

That startles a chuckle out of most of them; though he notices Kurosaki’s considering expression. He meets the man’s eyes, frowns as he recognizes what the glint on his eyes are. Wills himself not to think how similar they are from his own self years ago, before he over welcomed his stay at Helios.

 

“Why aren’t we going to do something about it?” Kurosaki asks, petulantly crossing his arms while maintaining eye contact with Grimmjow. “People had to leave their homes because of those jackasses.”

 

Grimmjow sighs, rubbing his temples. He opens his mouth to respond but Nel is faster.

 

“Ichigo,” she calls, and if she was closer to him Grimmjow is sure she would’ve grabbed Kurosaki’s shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do against Hyperion. At least not right now anyway.”

 

Sanderwicci huffs, but she nods. “Those guys don’t joke around; loaderbots are everywhere and the personnel are more than capable of taking out Grimmjow and Nel. And let’s not kid ourselves here; you three don’t seem to have enough experience to back them up.”

 

Quietness fills the room as the woman finishes her coffee, and she seems more than happy to ignore it. At the look on Nel’s face, she sighs. “If you’re serious about hunting down the vault, and somehow manage to get it before Hyperion does, I’m sure it won’t matter what they’re doing out here.”

 

“We can come back here once we’re sure Chad, Inoue and I can help you two more than just being a burden, right?” Kurosaki asks, and Grimmjow has to give him the credit of being this passionate, this _stubborn_ about what’s pretty much a lost cause.

 

By the glint in Nel’s eyes, Grimmjow knows she’s already decided on doing just so. He groans, hides his face on his hand because there’s nothing else he can do about this. Kurosaki’s friends also seem on board with the plan, and only Sanderwicci doesn’t look convinced.

 

He doesn’t know how he feels about having the same reaction as her.

 

“Anyway,” the woman says, slaps her thighs as if they’re all in a trance and the sound brings them out of it. “That’s pretty much about it on Hyperion mines. I’m sure you’re all dying to know what I have on the vault key.”

 

Nel nods; smiles at her and waits for whatever information Sanderwicci has to share with them.

 

“So a few days ago I was at Dordoni’s – oh, yeah, he’s living here now too, by the way – and I overhead some people talk about it, too drunk to care how loud they were being, but,” she starts, moves her hand with certain flourish. “Apparently some weird scientist guy found it and is trying to clone it.”

 

“The fuck,” Grimmjow mutters, not sure if he should feel amused or worried. She nods at him.

 

“Yeah, exactly,” she says. “He’ll either use it for himself or try to gain the maximum profit he can get from Hyperion. Probably the first one, I think, at least it will be if he’s as smart as they say.”

 

“Do you know where he’s staying?” Chad asks, startling Sanderwicci for finally speaking.

 

“Fuck, I thought you were mute,” she jokes, trying to look less surprised than she feels. “And yes, I do. He’s somewhere around the Frostburn Canyon. Not sure which part, but Dordoni probably knows.”

 

Nel stands up, gives Sanderwicci a thankful look and sets the mug on the table.

 

“So, which way to Dordoni’s?”

 

**XLVII.**

Low music fills their ears as soon as they open the doors, choosing a booth to sit down while Nel walks ahead, moving her head around in search of the owner.

 

The place is pretty much empty, not that she expected something different. She sits on a stool, signaling Dordoni to come over when she sees him. The man hasn’t changed at all, still with the goatee and the styled moustache, all confidence and flair in his movements.

 

As soon as Dordoni recognizes her, he smiles and waves at her, leaves his spot behind the bar to hug her. “Niña! It’s so good to see you!”

 

Nel laughs, her hair floating as Dordoni spins them around in a tight hug.

 

“How long has it been, huh?” he drops her back to the floor carefully and rests his hands on his hips. “Two, three years?”

 

“Something like that, yeah,” she says, smiling as the memories of her time in Lynchwood come back to her. Dordoni used to own a bar there too, and it was the perfect place to go wind down after a hard day’s work with the sheriff.

 

“Not that I’m not glad to see you, Niña, but what are you doing here in terrible town?”

 

“Oh, Cirucci told me you were here, and that you might know where we can find a scientist who has something that interests me,” she answers, lowering her voice in case someone else in the bar feels like hearing more than they should. “If you know what I mean.”

 

Dordoni easygoing expression turns serious, concern screaming at Nel without him even saying anything. “So you’re doing the vault hunter thing now,” he waits for her confirmation, then continues, one finger scratching his cheek. “I hope you’re not doing this alone, pequeña.”

 

“I’ve got some people with me, don’t worry,” she smiles, nods towards the booth where the others are sitting; only Grimmjow is looking at them, and he says one thing or another, too low for either of them to understand, but letting Nel know he’s trying to interact with them.

 

Dordoni analyzes each of them, arms crossed and not letting any emotion show on his face. Nel chuckles; he may have never been a vault hunter himself, but he sure does like to criticize anyone who claims to be one, likes to say who’s fit for the job and who isn’t just by giving them an once over, as if all that takes is that.

 

Dordoni’s never been wrong about his ‘final verdicts’, though, so she’s curious to know what her friends will get.

 

It doesn’t take long for him to turn back to her, showing satisfied smile on his face as he nods. “I don’t know what’s your criteria when you pick most of your partners, but,” he points discreetly to them, specifically at Ichigo. “That one is too soft for this, no matter how tough he tries to be. I bet even though he held a gun, not once he killed, let’s say, a bandit.”

 

Nel hesitates, but nods anyway; he’s always been incredibly accurate. “Ichigo already ran into a few bandits and skags, they all have actually, but he mostly gives them non-lethal wounds so Grimmjow and I can finish the bastards.”

 

At the booth, Ichigo laughs at something Chad has said, and Nel knows the look on her face can only be described as fond.

 

“Big guy is strong, but not trained enough for this,” Dordoni continues, obviously intent on dissecting all of them. “But he clearly has great potential; all he needs is the perfect opportunity to grow.”

 

She frowns, wonders, not for the first time since she met Dordoni, if the man is some kind of psychic; maybe even a prophet. Pointing to Orihime, she asks, “What about her?”

 

Dordoni keeps quiet for a few seconds, eyes fixated on the woman. “She’s… both soft and strong, as weird as it sounds. I can only see her avoiding deaths, not causing them. Which you kids will definitely need if you want to survive long for a long time being a vault hunter. Has potential too, don’t get me wrong, but it will take her some time to be good.”

 

Nel smiles; she’s impressed with his skills. “How can you be so good at this?”

 

“It’s good to know at least the basics of your clientele,” he shrugs, going for casual even though she knows he’s proud of himself for still being able to guess people’s personalities just through pure observation. “I’m impressed you are still travelling with Grimmjow, though. He’s always been tough to handle.”

 

“Nah,” she waves her hand dismissively. “He’s a big softie, deep down. You just need to get to know him better before he opens up to you – just a little, but he does, I promise.”

 

Dordoni chuckles, one eyebrow raised; amused. Nel shrugs – it’s the truth as far as she is concerned. Grimmjow is not the easiest person to be around, but he’s a good person, she knows that much from the time they’ve spent together.

 

He did save her after all, how could he not be good?

 

Relaxing his shoulders and softening his features, Dordoni says, “Now, Niña, since you’re traveling with capable company, I’m sure you’ll be fine going after that weird scientist guy.”

 

At those words, her ears perk up, and she stares at him intensely, ready to listen to his information.

 

“Cirucci told us he’s hiding somewhere in the Frostburn Canyon, but she doesn’t remember the exact location.” she says. “If you can help us with that, it would be great.”

 

“That I can do for you.”

 

**XLVIII.**

Nel slides down in the booth, bumping him to give her space. Grimmjow grunts, but complies anyway.

 

“So?” He asks, takes a sip of his drink.

 

“Dordoni gave me two things,” she starts, looking at everyone in the table with clear excitement. “One, the scientist’s name is Szayel, and two, he’s near the Incinerator Camp. Given the name, I’d guess we won’t be having the easiest time trying to get to him.”

 

“How do we do this?” Chad asks.

 

”Well,” she looks at Grimmjow, who simply shrugs, unhelpful, and then she sighs. “If we’re being realistic here – which we should be anyway –, it’s obvious Grimmjow and I will need to train you guys so that at least when we arrive there you three won’t get hurt easily. The shields Urahara gave you guys might work well and all, but it’s not enough to keep you safe in the middle of a fight.”

 

Grimmjow nods, taking over. “These things are handy until they deplete their energy, and waiting for it to recharge isn’t an option when you’ve got – shit, what’s a good example – a raging goliath heading straight to you.”

 

“That… sounds bad,” Orihime mutters, staring at the table before grabbing her cup to drink. Grimmjow makes a conscious effort not to roll his eyes; it’s not the woman’s fault if she’s never been in dangerous situations like that.

 

 _Good, you’re learning to sympathize_ , his mind whispers, though he just ignores the annoying voice. Thoughts like these don’t help him at all, never had.

 

Nel nods, taking over again. “Can be bad, can be worse than bad, can be extremely dangerous and terrible and the closest thing to a real nightmare sometimes, yes, but if we can help you guys figure out what you can do, teach you how to defend yourselves, we’ll all be fine. I’ll tell number two in a second.”

 

She gives them a reassuring smile and in return gets uncertain ones from the three. It doesn’t shake her confidence, though, and she stands up, announces she’ll pay the tab so they can leave.

 

A few patrons beg to differ, though, as one of them pulls out a revolver and casually rests its muzzle at the back of Nel’s head. Grimmjow snarls, reaches for the pistol he almost never uses, but stops at Nel’s stare.

 

“Please take your gun off of me, sir,” her voice is as cold as her eyes, though the poor bastard hasn’t seen them yet.

 

The man laughs, presses then revolver further so she has to bend her head forward a bit. “Fuck that, lady; you don’t call the shots here.”

 

As Nel remains silent, the rest of them keep from moving. Grimmjow limits himself from only counting how many assholes they’d have to fight, but doesn’t dare to move a muscle until Nel gives him the signal. Thankfully, the other three seem to get the message pretty clearly.

 

“Good, good, you know what’s the best for you and your friends,” he says and Grimmjow imagines the man’s skull cracked, blood pooling around him, eyes wide in fear. The bastard coughs to clear his throat, obviously expecting them to know he’s about to say what he wants. “See, missy, me and my pals here couldn’t help but overhear some interesting conversation that you and the Spanish Matador over there just had.”

 

At that, Grimmjow wonders where the fuck did Dordoni went to and his answer is almost immediate – there’s a small woman sitting on the counter, pointing her gun to the bar owner, grinning like the devil as the man tries to contain himself from doing anything to interfere.

 

“Listening to conversations you’re not supposed to is _terribly_ rude,” the man practically growls at her words; Grimmjow’s sure he can see a vein ready to pop out on his forehead.

 

 _Not one to have much patience, huh_. Grimmjow can work with that. He glances at Nel, his silent question only clear to her. She stares back, and then quickly glances to her pants, where she has strapped the guns she uses.

 

Waiting when the moment is tense like this sucks.

 

“As I was _saying_ ,” the man grits out, his teeth grinding painfully as he tries to calm down – unsuccessfully, Grimmjow notes with a tint of amusement. “We heard your talk about them vault keys and, lady, we’re more than interested in something like that.”

 

“You think we’re going after the key?” Nel moves her head by a fraction, just enough so the idiot can see her smirk. Her eyes are still cold; if Grimmjow was that man, he’d be shitting his pants right now. “My, sir, I don’t know where you got that idea, but we’re not looking for that kind of silly stuff.”

 

“What?” the man’s face is hilariously confused. Nel turns to Grimmjow and raises one eyebrow, causing him to grin. Meanwhile, the poor oblivious bastard is replaying the conversation he heard on his head. “No, I’m sure you told that man–”

 

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, all thanks to Nel raising her arm and turning her hand into a fist, phaselocking the guy a few inches above the floor. Before the man’s friends can react, Grimmjow’s already shooting the ones closest to their booth, while Kurosaki pulls Orihime out of a bullet’s way and Chad punches the shooter in the stomach.

 

Nel pulls out her pistol, nodding for Grimmjow to back those three up, and shoots the small woman’s leg so Dordoni can have enough time to grab the gun in her hand. With a loud bang, he makes sure the woman won’t be able to help her bandit friends again. Grimmjow winces, tries not to focus on that.

 

“Fuck,” He mutters, and a bullet ricochets on his metal arm – and thanks whatever deity made sure he wasn’t in Lynchwood anymore; otherwise Starrk would’ve been admonishing him later on. Annoyed at the thought, he sends three bullets in the direction of the one that tried to hit him came from, but doesn’t look to check if it hit someone.

 

Assessing the place, Grimmjow notices Dordoni and Nel backing each other up – no need to worry about them. For someone so big and tall, Chad moves with surprisingly quickness as he hits his enemies and knocks them down with ease; so far he’s doing well, there’s no need for Grimmjow to help him.

 

Kurosaki and Orihime, however, clearly need his aid.

 

“Oi, you two! Pay attention!” he screams, catching their attention. He throws one of his spare guns to Kurosaki and pushes him away, and then pulls Orihime next to him; the bullet aimed at one of them barely grazes Grimmjow’s shoulder. He looks at the floor and releases his grip from her. “Can you use a gun?”

 

Orihime nods. He sighs in relief, thanking Nel mentally for apparently training her more than once. Tossing the pistol right on the floor, Grimmjow begins to assist Kurosaki, taking down the men trying to get behind him.

 

Orihime hesitates for a second, but at the look of Grimmjow’s eyes, she takes a long breath and aims at a lady to their left.

 

A scream of agony makes him snap his head on the direction of the sound, catching the sight of a normal costumer on the floor, clutching his leg, blood already pooling on the floor. He watches as Kurosaki makes his way to the man, cursing and shooting the guys taking the opportunity of the man’s carelessness.

 

Kurosaki, much to Grimmjow’s disbelief, helps the man up and walks up to him and Orihime.

 

“What the hell are you doing, Kurosaki?” he forces himself from glaring at the man, the need to punch him for being stupid rising when he catches a glimpse of his face.

 

“He’s injured,” Kurosaki says, as if it’s a normal response for the situation they’re in. Grimmjow groans, doesn’t roll his eyes because he has to focus on the woman in front of them; she leaps table from table, no ranged weapons in hand, but she does carry a baseball bat with barbed wire, eager to get a homerun with their heads. “I’m taking him outside.”

 

“What?!” he screams and makes the mistake of looking back, towards Kurosaki, but the man doesn’t wait and brings Orihime with him as his backup. The woman with the bat is closer than he’d like her to be now, her giggle audible in the midst of bullet exchanges. “Fucking–”

 

She hits him on his right side, steps back and jumps back and forth, taunting him. Grimmjow growls, metal hand covering the fresh wound, and raises his gun at her. He’s glad for not bringing his beloved shotgun into small and closed spaces, especially now that he can’t use both his hands, refuses to do so when so much blood is leaving him.

 

Aiming at her head he shoots once, twice, three, _four_ times. She drops dead, her lips are a mixture of her manic smile and scream of terror; Grimmjow takes her bat, taking his metal hand off the wound, and does his best to ignore how the hand holding the gun is trembling.

 

He looks back at the door, but Kurosaki and Orihime are still outside. He doesn’t know what they’re planning to do, doesn’t know if they’ll come back for the other unlucky people who got caught in this mess, so he rushes to Chad’s side, putting his gun back on its holster and holding the bat with both hands.

 

Busting the kneecaps of one of the bastards, he looks at Chad and nods when the man shoots him a small smile of gratitude before going back to punching the man he’s holding up by the collar.

 

Chad’s big, tall, quick – but more importantly, he’s strong and he knows it, knows how much strength to pack in a punch in a way that will only knock the men out, not cause any lasting damages or traumas. Grimmjow can appreciate that, the controlled power the man has. There’s less casualties, less guilt later when there’s enough time to think about it, less not being able to live with yourself for it.

 

One by one, Chad and Grimmjow take out the men and women from their side, and every now and then he catches glimpses of Kurosaki and Orihime taking innocents outside, switching places on who carries the person and who covers them.

 

Grimmjow still thinks it’s a waste of time, but at least they’re aware enough of their surroundings that he believes they’ll be okay by themselves.

 

Nel’s powers darken the other side of the room, a small, controlled black hole trapping whoever she targets. He grins; she’s always been the more competent between the two of them, more powerful too, considering she’s a siren. Grimmjow would never want to get in a fight _against_ her. She’s just too powerful, he thinks.

 

The fight takes much longer than he expected, and by the end of it, Dordoni’s bar is completely trashed, probably to the point where it’s easier to buy another place than to fix this one. He winces in sympathy, business ruined by bandits are always this bad.

 

He helps Chad drag the unconscious people closer to the bar, where Dordoni sits, a dejected look on his face. Nel is frowning; her head lowered as she holds her hands and squeezes them several times. Kurosaki only enters to tell them he’s helping Orihime take care of the injured, and all Nel does is nod slowly, though Grimmjow isn’t sure she heard the man.

 

Leaving the tying down to Chad, he approaches Nel, touches her shoulder softly. “Hey,” he whispers; she doesn’t respond, doesn’t do anything besides squeeze her hands together. Frowning, he taps her shoulder lightly. “ _Hey_. Nel, can you hear me?”

 

She snaps her head up, eyes filling with tears. She turns to Dordoni and opens her mouth, but the man simply lifts his hand.

 

“Don’t blame yourself for this, Niña,” he says, lower his hand and stands in front of her. “Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, either from bandits or Aizen’s people. Hell, if Dahl still has its soldiers, could’ve been them too.”

 

The only thing that Nel hears is the loud sob she can’t stop from escaping. She covers her mouth and shuts her eyes. Grimmjow squeezes the hand on her shoulder before taking it out. Between her crying she manages to stutter out an apology that Dordoni immediately dismisses. He opens his arms, a silent invitation that she takes without a second thought.

 

“It’s okay,” he says, pats her on the top of her head, in the way a father does in Grimmjow’s eyes. “Hey, if anything, this actually helped me.”

 

Nel lifts her head from his chest, confusion screaming through the tears.

 

“The Overlook isn’t the best place to live anymore, you know that,” he watches as she nods, rubbing her face to dry off the tears. “I was already planning on leaving sooner or later, what happened today just, well, kicked me into doing it sooner.”

 

With that he manages to drawl out a small giggle from her. “I know it’s stupid to cry over this,” she says, tugging her lips upwards. “But it’s the first time I’ve seen you in three years and all I do is mess up your bar. It sucks, is all.”

 

“Well, it’s not like you haven’t done something like this back in Lynchwood.” Dordoni sounds slightly amused. “Especially whenever Harribel and her deputies decided to join you to drink – I’m sure those three ladies broke my place more than you did with their drinking contest and bickering.”

 

Nel nods, conceding. She steps away from the hug, looking considerably less guilty and sad. Grimmjow sighs, turns to Dordoni and smiles a little, thanking him. The man shrugs, just as happy as Grimmjow is that Nel isn’t crying anymore.

 

“So what do you plan to do with the ones we knocked out?” Grimmjow asks, staring at the unconscious bodies by Chad’s feet.

 

“Huh,” he scratches the side of his face, thinking. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe Cirucci will have some… inventive ideas on what to do with these bastards.”

 

“You sure you don’t want our help?” he offers, shuddering at the thought of what Sanderwicci might come up for them.

 

“I’m okay,” Dordoni reassures them, already turning on his ECHO device to call the woman. “Besides, you guys have a part of the vault key to hunt down. Can’t let others reach Szayel before you, right?”

 

When he puts it in that way, all Grimmjow can do is wish the men and women in front of Dordoni to rest in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are, as always, very much appreciated! they make me very happy < 3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyooo i bring y'all another chapter, how about that huh

**XLIX.**

_I’ve healed them the best I could_ , Orihime thinks, _there weren’t any proper tools for anything more advanced_.

 

They’re back at the van, driving back – Frostburn Canyon is actually a bit further away from Sanctuary, so they still have several miles to go, though she’s not sure how many days it would take. She hasn’t been counting when they left home, so there isn’t even something to base on how long the drive will be.

 

Switching who’s the driver is the best way to avoid overexerting any of them, so according to the rotation they’ve made Kurosaki-kun will be the one driving after the next stop they take. Right now, Chad’s driving, following attentively to Jaegerjaquez-san’s instructions.

 

“Inoue?” Kurosaki-kun’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and she sheepishly looks at him. “Are you going to pass or are you in?”

 

She stares at the cards she has in hands, biting her lips and furrowing her eyebrows in concentration. She takes a peek at the ones on the makeshift table Urahara provided them and sighs, defeated.

 

“I think it’s better if I pass this time,” she smiles, not bothered at all that between her, Kurosaki-kun and Nel, she’s in last place. She’s never been a big fan of this game anyway.

 

Gambling games aren’t her forte, even after Rangiku taught her the secret of the slots machines she has in her bar. _They’re rigged in a way that whenever someone plays a certain amount of times before giving up, whoever comes up after them gets to win whatever it is the first one hasn’t_ , she remembers her boss saying, even if she can’t recall how many tries one would have to get for that to happen.

 

Actually, she didn’t really need to remember that, not when what Rangiku told her isn’t a sure technique to win, but simply dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. Not that Orihime said anything to her at the time.

 

She watches as Kurosaki-kun and Nel continuously raise their bets, the numbers growing and growing, getting bolder and bolder until they couldn’t do anything but flip the cards over to find who the winner is.

 

The table gets accidentally flipped over when Nel shoots up and starts to jump in place, squealing as Orihime looks at the scene with the same amusement she can find in Kurosaki-kun’s eyes.

 

“The hell are you guys doing back there?” Jaegerjaquez-san looks back at them and asks, his voice sounding more amused than angry, and Nel laughs.

 

“Celebrating my victory,” she shimmies a little before bending down to help Kurosaki-kun and Orihime clean the mess of cards.

 

He rolls his eyes as he looks back to the road, but Orihime notices his lips are turned upwards.

 

They’ve left the Overlook a few hours ago, and haven’t covered much distance since. Orihime sighs, collecting the cards while Kurosaki-kun lifts the table and Nel looks sheepish. She places the ones she grabbed on Nel’s hand; the siren looks at her embarrassedly, but takes the cards anyway.

 

“So where are we at right now?” Kurosaki-kun asks as the van goes into a tunnel.

 

“We’re still at the Highlands,” Nel says, putting the cards back on the table. “It’s going to take some days until we reach Frostburn Canyon.”

 

He nods, chin resting on his hand. The tunnel ends and he squints, sudden light annoying his eyes. “That long, huh.”

 

“It took us a few days to get to Overlook,” Nel shrugs. “Plus, we _are_ taking a different route this time.”

 

“Oh yeah,” he sits up straight and lifts his gaze up, rests one arm on the back of his seat. “Why are we doing that? I don’t remember you saying anything about it.”

 

“There’s someone we need to visit first,” Jaegerjaquez-san points to the left and Chad turns, leaving the pavement road. “And no, we didn’t say anything before. The guy we’re going to see is a pain in the ass, though.”

 

“You’re still moping about the time he made you give a bath to his pet skag and then when it barfed on you he used that as data for his skag research, aren’t you?” Nel giggles, laughing harder when he turns to glare at her. “Wow, you really are. That’s adorable.”

 

“Shut it, _Nelliel_.”

 

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

 

**L.**

“You stink,” Nel sniffs Grimmjow’s hair to emphasize her point. He flicks her shoulder, snarling.

 

“Like you’re one to talk,” he grumbles.

 

“I think we should stop soon then,” she stretches her arms. “Either when we find a town or any place that has a shower or if there’s a river that hasn’t been tainted with whatever Hyperion or Dahl dumps at it.”

 

“Cleaning up would be nice,” Orihime adds, lips tugging up and head tilting to the right.

 

It takes a few hours, but they finally stop when Ichigo spots a couple of houses near the smallest of rivers. They all get out of the van; Chad and Grimmjow walk up to one house while Ichigo, Nel and Orihime knock on the other.

 

There are no answers in neither of the houses; Nel frowns, already surveying their surroundings in case of skags or stalkers or even bandits, but she comes up with nothing. Grimmjow, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too bothered, covering his hand with his shirt and breaking a window to enter the house.

 

“What is he _doing_?” Ichigo asks, joins Chad on the porch.

 

Chad shrugs.

 

“ _Grimmjow_ ,” Nel hisses, her eyes and tattoos flaring up for a couple seconds before she composes herself. “Grimmjow, get back here.”

 

There’s no response from the man. She sighs, ready to climb through the window when she hears a _click_ and the door opens. Grimmjow grins at her, too smug to react to her shoving him away from the entrance as she walks inside.

 

“Proud of yourself?” she asks, trying to maintain an angry pose, not entirely succeeding.

 

Grimmjow shrugs, puts his shirt back on. “A little bit, yes,” he points his thumb to somewhere behind him. “Shower’s still working, by the way, so all we have to do is decide the order of who gets to go first and all that.”

 

“Where’s the bathroom?” Orihime asks, stepping in after Nel.

 

“Wait, how is it working?” Nel frowns. “Please tell me we didn’t just break into someone’s house.”

 

“Doesn’t look like that’s the case, so you can calm down,” he pats her on the shoulder. “I didn’t find any personal belongings or clothes or, well, anything that gives it away this house house has an owner. I’m pretty sure it’s abandoned”

 

Although she looks mildly convinced, she still furrows her eyebrows. “How is the water running from the shower, then?”

 

“There’s a mill just outside,” Chad points to the river and she sees it.

 

“Everything good now?” Grimmjow quips, steps away from her just in time to avoid a slap on his stomach.

 

“Yeah, I guess,” she mutters, trying to look like she’s sulking, but her poorly hidden grin gives her away. “So, bathroom?”

 

“Down the hall, second door to the left,” he says, already making himself comfortable on the old and almost completely destroyed couch. “There’s a hatch on the ceiling at the end of the hallway, by the way, but I didn’t try to open it.”

 

Nel nods and grabs Orihime’s arm, pulling her towards the small hallway. “Orihime can go first and I’ll go after her; you three decide the order each of you will shower.”

 

“Whatever,” Grimmjow says and Nel can still hear him by the end of the hall with how small the house is.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go first?” Orihime asks, one hand at the doorknob. “I don’t mind waiting, not at all!”

 

“It’s fine, you go first,” Nel smiles, ushers her inside the bathroom and closes the door, turning away.

 

Then she stops, smacks her forehead and turns back, opening the door. “Is there any towels in there?”

 

“Oh, I forgot to check that,” Orihime looks around, shaking his head when she doesn’t find any.

 

“I’ll go grab the ones from the van, just wait for a second,” she steps back, bringing the door shut.

 

She walks back to the van, picks up towels for all of them, searches for clean clothes for her and Orihime – if the guys want it, they can come here then – and rushes inside. Giving one towel and a spare of one of the last few clothes they have to Orihime, she smiles at the thanks and goes back to wait with the guys, handing Ichigo’s and Chad’s towels carefully and dumping Grimmjow’s on his head.

 

He curses at the momentary darkness and removes it quickly, scowling at Nel. She smiles at him, feigning innocence. Next to her, Ichigo chuckles; she raises an eyebrow at him, mildly amused.

 

“You two act like me and my sisters, and I –” he explains, eyes getting distant, probably thinking back at a fond memory of them. Quietly, he adds, “I miss them.”

 

Nel knows the feeling, she really does – it’s been months since the last time she called her brothers, only did so to tell them not to worry if she didn’t contact them for a while, and _yes_ everything is fine with her and _no_ , they shouldn’t leave Lynchwood to come and get her. The last time she saw them without having to use her ECHO device was years ago.

 

Pesche and Dondochakka are goofy and may mean well in their attempts to help, but considering her situation right now–

 

She misses them, but their safety is more important than her childish wishes of having them with her and the others, traveling across Pandora and sharing adventures, especially when they’re not exactly prone to violence. She’s still convinced the only reason they survived in Pandora so far is because Harribel takes care of her townspeople, worries about their safety.

 

_I should probably visit them at some point, catch up with everyone_ , she muses, hopes it will be possible while admitting to herself that it’s more likely that it won’t happen. Drawing her legs closer, up on the couch, she hugs them tightly, her chin resting on her knees.

 

A crash coming from outside the house snaps her out of her thoughts, not that she appreciates it. She shares a look with Grimmjow and nods, slowly inching closer to the window closest to the sound.

 

A blur of what she can only assumes is from a human being passes too quickly for her to identify what they’re dealing with. She sighs, lowers so she can go from one side of the window to the other, sneaking closer to the hallway in case they try to attack Orihime–

 

Who is already done with her bath, towel around her shoulders as she uses its corner to dry her cheek. She looks refreshed for about a whole three seconds; the tilt of her head is a question, and Nel’s lips get thinner.

 

“Someone’s outside,” she whispers, giving Orihime an onceover. “Did you bring the pistol we gave you?”

 

Hesitation tells Nel all she needs to know before Orihime even shakes her head, embarrassed. Nel pinches the bridge of her nose. She knows that besides her, at least Grimmjow and Ichigo brought theirs, Chad too, probably.

 

“Okay, we can still work with that,” she pats Orihime on the shoulder, going for reassuring and hoping the message gets across. “Just – so you can be safe if things get too bad – try not to bring attention to yourself then, hide under something, or behind maybe, anything that will make it hard for whoever is out there to find you.”

 

She bites her lips, but nods vigorously. Nel gives her a small smile. “Alright, I’ll go back and check on the guys, try to come up with a plan or something. Do you want someone with you?”

 

Orihime shakes her head. “No, I’ll be fine. If something happens, if they find me, I can… um… slap them with the towel?”

 

It’s not the appropriate time to be laughing, so Nel holds the most she can, letting out only a light chuckle to go with her shiny, amused eyes.

 

Even though she claims to be fine by herself, Nel isn’t so quick to believe it, as funny as her response was. Bringing nothing to a gun fight is, in fact, way worse than bringing a knife. With Grimmjow by the door and Ichigo counting his bullets, Nel approaches Chad, taps him on the shoulder.

 

“Orihime is back there, in the hallway,” she whispers and Chad nods, signaling he’s listening even if he’s staring outside. “Don’t get too far away from there in case she needs help, okay? Try to see if you can open that hatch and stay up there or something.”

 

“Inoue is strong,” Chad mumbles. Nel frowns and he shakes his head lightly. “But I worry about my friends, so I’ll do it.”

 

“Thanks,” she pats him on the arm, still not used to his height. Raising her voice for just a tiny fraction, she catches Grimmjow and Ichigo’s attention. “Everyone ready?”

 

**LI.**

There’s a total of three… four… _five_ people standing outside of the house, the man in the center sporting a particularly dark grin. Grimmjow growls lowly, hand tightening on his gun.

 

“Well, would you look at that,” the one in the middle, probably the leader, steps forward. “See, Gremmy, I told you there would be more idiots that would fall for the trap.”

 

Another guy – most likely Gremmy – rolls her eyes and raises her SMG. “Yeah, _whatever_. Let’s just kill them already and loot their stuff.”

 

Before Grimmjow can even begin raising his gun, Nel’s already phasewalked herself behind the Gremmy guy; she successfully traps one of her arms behind his back, taking down the weapon from his hand effortlessly. Grimmjow can’t see Nel’s face, her hair falling down her face making it impossible, but he smirks anyway, sure she’s got a terrifying expression going on.

 

“None of your friends should move if they care about you getting out of this alive,” she puts the muzzle of her Jakobs on Gremmy’s temple, not bothering to stare at the other ones to make sure they understand she’s not bluffing.

 

Laughter comes out of the guy Grimmjow’s sure is the leader, and the man’s face twists in disgust. “You think I care about whether they live or die? This isn’t, I don’t know, fucking _Elpis_.”

 

“Elpis is pretty violent too,” a small girl with chin-length blonde hair comments, not overly concerned about the situation.

 

“Shut up,” the leader retorts. “What I mean is that Pandora is way worse than any other place we know in this galaxy. You and your little group should start acting accordingly.”

 

“Big word,” blonde girl quips, but aims her gun at Nel.

 

Never one to hesitate, Nel shoots Gremmy on the foot – a warning.

 

Gremmy cries. “Fuck! Cang Du, _do something_!”

 

Too enthralled on the scene in front of him, Grimmjow forgets about that it’s a group of five. His reminder is the wrong side of a gun at the back of his head – _oh, that’s such a rookie mistake_ , Grimmjow grits his teeth, not feeling up for being chastised by his own mind.

 

By the corner of his eye, Kurosaki’s been caught too, a girl with pink hair points at the side of his head. Her hands are trembling ever so slightly, though, so if Kurosaki is smart he can disarm her. He won’t kill, of course, because that’s not a thing he can push himself to do, but Grimmjow is almost certain he can at the very least knock her out.

 

“Cang, _please_!” Gremmy cries again, but Cang is too occupied with his current problem to care about the boy’s tears and the blonde’s frown as she lowers her weapon.

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Cang Du grits out, still aiming at Nel’s head, his own hands trembling.

 

Grimmjow’s fingers twitch, longing to pull the trigger. He shouldn’t have brought the goddamn shotgun – Bazz-B’s extra payment was a great weapon, and Nel had tossed it to him, claiming he should have it, because carrying just the one shotgun and the small, old, practically broken revolver isn’t enough for protection.

 

He should’ve listened to her, Nel’s always right about shit like that.

 

Too late to cry about that, though.

 

Nel moves her pistol on Gremmy’s shoulder, her trigger finger ready to fire. She locks her gaze on Cang Du. “You say you don’t care, but your actions tell me something else,” she presses the muzzle further, causing the boy to wince. “I guess you wouldn’t care if I –”

 

A bullet comes from above, as far as Grimmjow can perceive without taking the risk of having his head blown up, and lands close to Cang Du’s feet, startling him.

 

“ _The fuck_ ,” Grimmjow mutters, frowning.

 

When the second one strikes Cang Du’s thigh, Grimmjow takes the opportunity of the man’s friend’s concern to disarm him and switch their positions – with Grimmjow taking her gun to himself and pointing at the girl’s temple, his other hand gripping her tightly in place.

 

As he expected – _hoped_ –, Kurosaki manages to cease the same opening and the girl starts to whine. Cang Du growls and covers his wound with a hand, muttering something about shitty stolen shields.

 

The girl he’s got on his aim sighs, raises her arms in defeat and Cang Du glares at him, clearly opposed to what he’s doing.

 

“Don’t be stupid,” one of the girls huffs, sounding bored. “They’ve clearly got a sniper, there’s no way we can turn this around.”

 

“Gigi shouldn’t be this pessimistic,” pink hair says, though she shows no signs of trying to break free or that she has a plan. She looks at their leader, hopeful. “Cang, you have a plan, right?”

 

The small blonde one, still pointing her gun at Nel, rolls her eyes – _what a fucking mess of a group_ , Grimmjow thinks, mentally thanks the people traveling with him aren’t this bad.

 

Cang Du avoids the girl’s gaze, his attention on Nel. His brows are furrowed, contemplating his next move. Thing is, there’s no good ending for him and his friends if he decides to retaliate somehow.

 

At this point, it’s not like him and Nelliel are above from killing. Not when it gets them to be alive for longer.

 

Not when Aizen still has to pay.

 

They’re in a stalemate right now, no one daring to make the first move, afraid of the reaction chain it will bring down. Cang Du’s blood is trickling down his leg and he’s more pissed than concerned about his wound; his hand taps his non-wounded thigh with the gun, slowly. Grimmjow watches as the short blondie shifts her stare from Nel, to him, to Kurosaki and all the way back to Nel, her eyes narrowed.

 

Maybe almost a minute passes when –

 

Pink hair triggers the motion, shaking and kicking and attempting to head-butt Kurosaki; he loses his grip on her, startled, and she turns back, weapon aimed at his head. Grimmjow feels himself tense up for a second, breath forgotten.

 

Kurosaki is quick on the recover, and he imitates her stance.

 

Thing is, pink hair’s actions get Nel to shoot Gremmy’s shoulder, and the bullet is close enough to go through the boy’s shield. As Gremmy screams out of shock and pain, Nel shoves her on Blondie’s direction, trapping both in her phaselock. Her arm is raised, aimed at Cang Du’s stomach, and Grimmjow watches as he pales considerably quick.

 

Grimmjow frowns, tightening his grip on the girl, but so far she’s been the only one who hasn’t tried anything against them. Suspicion begins to whisper in his ear, float around his mind, and he twists her arm, almost to a breaking point, not enjoying the cry that comes out but feeling more reassured she won’t try anything if she sees he can and _will_ break her arm if it comes to it.

 

A shot brings his attention back to Nel, and he snarls at the sight of her twitching, one hand on her shoulder, doing her best not to collapse. Before he can aim the weapon at Cang Du, another shot comes, hitting the man’s right arm.

 

This time he can see it – inside the house, second floor.

 

Now, which one of them did it?

 

**LII.**

There’s a time and place to sit down and stay put, waiting for others to do their job while you watch safely from the sidelines because you feel there’s nothing you can do to help. There is, also, a time when you will see your friends in such big trouble they could get killed if things go south for them – and that’s when you take action, no matter how useless you think your attempt will be.

 

Chad is lucky to be there to witness when Inoue decides hiding isn’t the best option, and asks him to open the hatch. He complies, helps her get up and follows right after.

 

“There’s got to be something around here, right?” she’s not looking at him, too focused on her search. “Those crates look like the ones we found back in the Happy Pig Motel, so maybe they will have something that we can use.”

 

He nods, helping her open the crates and chests, mostly coming up with ammo and grenade mods, plus the one shield that seems too old and worn out to be worth equipping. Inoue’s gasp catches his attention.

 

“This can help,” he says, picks up the sniper rifle from the chest, examining it over. “We just have to be careful.”

 

Inoue nods. “I still remember the basics of what Nel taught us,” she looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Do you think that will be enough?”

 

“It’ll have to do,” he positions the weapon near the window, fixes so it won’t topple over and beckons her. “What do you think?”

 

Stepping back, Chad looks around while Inoue checks if he put it in a good spot. The house hadn’t looked lived in for a good amount of time when they stepped in, but this amount of ammo and mods and whatnot makes him frown. No one in Pandora would leave all this loot unattended, be it the house owner or the bandit that killed them.

 

Those people down there, they must be the ones living here – at the very least they know about this place and use it to ambush travelers.

 

Pandora’s never been forgiving, his Abuelo once told him, and while he can now see why and agree with him, Chad wishes it could give them a break once in a while.

 

“Looks like a good place to me,” she perks up, snaps him out of the thoughts of his Abuelo and his lessons about how the planet works.

 

Inoue looks down, right where their friends are facing the women, everything seeming – well, still, stopped. They can listen from where they are, so Chad tries not to worry too much, tries to believe seeing their friends in a delicate situation like that doesn’t shake him.

 

He fails.

 

“So,” Inoue starts, unsure of what words to use. “How are we going to do this? I… it’s probably silly, since we live in such a dangerous world, but… I would like to avoid killing any of them.”

 

Chad nods, expecting nothing but that reaction coming from her, and, honestly, he shares the sentiment. He’s here to protect his friends, not for the violence. If killing is required to save his friends, though, he’s not sure he’s ready to cross that bridge.

 

“Aim for the foot if they’re not moving much,” he says, crouches down next to Inoue, who’s handling the sniper rifle. “Or shoot somewhere on the legs – the thighs, preferably.”

 

She nods and bites her lips, and he’s sure she already knew this kind of information, but nerves tend to get in the way of rationality and if he’s not ready to help a friend when they need then what good is he? How good is his word if he can’t do what he promised – to his Abuelo, to Ichigo?

 

Inoue’s focusing, looking for the appropriate time to shoot – is she going to the foot, the thighs, somewhere else that’s non-lethal? Will she end up killing one of the enemies or will she succeed in not shooting someone to death?

 

He takes a look at her, her hands shaking less than expected – but still moving a lot, he notices –, eye on the scope, positioning the weapon for a good aim. She’s hesitant, he can see that very clearly. But –

 

Yeah, she can do this. She can avoid a stranger’s death as well as of their friends. She’s strong and focused enough for that. Even though she doesn’t seem too keen on grabbing a gun, she’s been able to do it and she can save their friends if only she manages to take the right shot at the right moment.

 

First shot, and it hits somewhere close to a black-haired man’s feet, but that changes the atmosphere of the situation, and he smiles at Inoue; she’s got their attention, got their fear and insecurity of not counting for someone else they haven’t seen. She’s not grinning, she’s not celebrating – it’s not the proper reaction, anyway.

 

Second shot and she hits a thigh. They both remain quiet as they watch the events unfold – how their friends get the ball on their court, the confidence of Inoue helping them letting things flow easier, letting Grimmjow and Ichigo exchange places with their captors.

 

He’s glad Inoue takes her time before the shot, to assess the best timing she can recognize – for now, she can improve this skill, she can keep helping them in battle as their sniper, Chad will make sure of that if she agrees – and nails the target with a precision better than he expected from someone who’s used a sniper rifle only once before and can’t even shake off the trembling in her hands.

 

Down there, no one moves; Chad holds his breath, sure Inoue is doing the same. They wait, focused and wary and tense, for either a truce or another opportunity to shoot.

 

The flurry of pink hair moving gets the momentum going, the attempt of escape turning the balance further to their side, and Inoue tenses, eyes trying to follow everything that’s happening all at once. Chad puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes, and she visibly calms down, nodding.

 

The old game of sitting and waiting, watching until an opportunity strikes is an unnerving one. You grow restless when doing nothing, knowing something needs to be done but the time isn’t quite right yet. He knows Inoue feels the same way he does, with her incessant lip chewing as a screaming indicative.

 

It takes Nelliel getting shot with electric ammo for Inoue to react, good or bad timing be damned (and, honestly, Chad would’ve done the same, were it him the one holding the sniper rifle). She presses the trigger, reaction almost automatic, with no time to adjust the weapon, and hits her target on the arm.

 

They watch as Nelliel stands up, face too hard to read thanks to the distance, and immediately locks both the man who shot her and a small lady. She yells and Grimmjow nods, hits the woman in his arms with the back of his weapon, letting her fall down on the ground less than delicately. With the hesitance Chad knew Ichigo would have, his friend does the same, and walks inside the house.

 

“It’s over now,” Inoue sighs, one hand on her chest. “I think I’ll take this with us, if Nel is okay with that.”

 

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” he smiles, carries the weapon on his back as she checks one more time for anything else of interest. “We have more than enough space for one more gun.”

 

She nods, excited, and both of them hop down, meeting with the others. Leaning against the front door, Nelliel smiles at them, shaky breath and one hand still curled into a fist, her phaselock still in place. Grimmjow stands by her side, sneaking worried glances every so often while talking to them.

 

“Who took the shot?” he asks, his head cocked to the side and genuine curiosity in his voice.

 

Inoue smiles and raises her hand, and Grimmjow looks at her, eyebrows raised. He crosses his arms, chuckles.

 

“Impressive.”

 

“I couldn’t just stand there waiting for you guys to solve everything while I do nothing,” she shrugs, stops by his side. Tilting her torso to the right, she observes the women trapped on Nelliel’s phaselock. “What are we going to do about them?”

 

Nelliel looks at the women, then back at Grimmjow. He shrugs and crosses his arms. Turning back to Inoue, she tugs her lips upwards raises her shoulders, sheepishly. “I still want to take that shower, and honestly, who knows when we’ll find another one again? I say we tie them up until everyone is done and we just… get out of here, go back to what we have to do.”

 

“Sounds good to me,” Ichigo says, crashing on the couch, almost falling off.

 

“Alright,” Nelliel says, uncurls her hand to end the phaselock and there’s a _thump_ outside. “Hope we’ve got rope somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is very much appreciated!!! it makes my day tbh, love them comments lmao


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyyy sorry for taking so long to update!!!
> 
> this chapter doesn't have much going on, but i still like it??? hope y'all will too :D

**LIII.**

Ichigo has come to realize that vault hunters don’t tend to stay at the same place for too long, unless extremely needed.

 

Back on the dirt road again, he drives following Grimmjow’s direction, paying attention so stalkers don’t end up attacking them. The sun is setting and soon it will be night; no one wants to stop the van anywhere near the creatures.

 

“This area is infected with stalkers,” he complains, sparing a quick glance at Grimmjow. “Why are we taking this route?”

 

By the corner of his eye, he sees Grimmjow shrug. “It’s the quickest way to get to Doctor Asshole.”

 

“In other words,” Ichigo sighs, takes a sharp turn when Grimmjow forgets to tell him at the right time. “We’re taking a shortcut.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Grimmjow pulls his legs up, resting them on the dashboard.

 

At the answer, Ichigo has to restrain himself from smashing his head on the steering wheel.

 

“What did we talk about you and shortcuts?” he leans over the wheel, searching for whatever caused the bumping. It’s probably a small stalker, so he shrugs and goes back to sitting properly.

 

“Yeah, but believe me,” Grimmjow starts, scratches the side of his head absentmindedly. “Better _my_ shortcuts than Nel’s.”

 

“You got us to run into a bunch of bandits.”

 

“We survived, didn’t we?”

 

Ichigo rolls his eyes, “Not the point,” he spares a glance at Grimmjow, curious. “But, uh, how bad are Nel’s shortcuts?”

 

He doesn’t expect the shiver his words cause on Grimmjow, but he does smirk when it happens. And it doesn’t matter that Grimmjow grunts at him for it, since Ichigo just ignores him.

 

“Yeah, you go and fucking laugh at me,” he grumbles. “Just wait until she takes us to what most people would call a dead-end but she only sees as a minor inconvenience, forces the car to go up because if we turn back goddamn threshers will eat us – _then_ I wanna see you complain about my route choices again, you ass.”

 

“It was one time!” Nel argues, gets up from her seat and flicks Grimmjow’s ear.

 

He swats her hand away half-heartedly, grumbling. “Fucking one time too many, that’s what it was.”

 

Nel rolls her eyes, but goes back to her previous position, plopping down on the seat loudly and crossing her arms.

 

“Threshers, huh,” Ichigo gulps and feels goosebumps on his arms, the image of one of these creatures forming on his mind easily, almost instantly, actually. His mom’s tale and the picture she took of the thresher’s death will be forever ingrained in his mind, Ichigo is sure of it. “Yeah, I’d rather face the bandits.”

 

“Told you so,” Grimmjow says, his lips turn into a smug smile as he adjusts his legs to a more comfortable position on the dashboard.

 

“Yeah, whatever.”

 

**LIV.**

They decide not to stop the van to sleep; the land ahead is still filled with stalkers, and with this plague of a creature having a tendency to turn invisible, stopping could turn into a big problem, not even depending on which kind of stalker might appear to them.

 

_Vicious little things they are_ , Nel thinks. From the passenger seat, she looks out for any of them, though the search is practically fruitless at this point, with the darkness of the night already looming over them.

 

Orihime drives with more caution than all of them, and Nel appreciates it, really, except she would love it even more when she doesn’t do it in potentially dangerous territory.

 

“We should probably move faster,” she says, twiddling her thumbs, hand on her lap, glancing at the other woman. “Getting out of stalker zone is our priority right now.”

 

She nods and steps on the gas. Nel smiles, looks less on edge, and turns the radio on, leaving it on a low volume; waking up the others now would be mean, not to mention counterproductive since they’re still taking shifts.

 

They set into a still silence, only the sounds of the radio and the outside reaching their ears. It makes her want to sleep, so she forces herself to shake her head and slaps her cheeks a couple times.

 

“Hey, Nel,” Orihime starts, eyes focused on what’s in front of her. “You and Jaegerjaquez-san have been vault hunters for a while, right?”

 

Nel nods, then realizes she’s too focused on driving that she hadn’t turned, “Yes, a little over two years, I think.”

 

“Oh,” Orihime says. “I thought you two have been doing this for longer, you know, with the way you interact with him.”

 

“We only started the vault hunter thing recently,” she’s not sure why Orihime is asking these things right now, but Nel doesn’t mind answering something she’d tell them eventually, one way or another. “Before that, we worked at the same place together for years, until we… decided it wasn’t the best environment for us, for both our personal and professional growth.”

 

“It takes a lot of courage to quit your job to go chase your dreams of being a vault hunter,” Orihime mutters, her voice making her admiration very clear. “Being as dangerous as it is, plus it’s never certain you’ll find the vault.”

 

“Well, I tend to see it as less of an act of bravery and more of a case of stupidity and sometimes sheer dumb luck,” she quips, trying to make it sound like a joke, but only barely managing to do so.

 

Orihime frowns; probably worried with the statement.

 

“Nothing extremely terrible happened, I promise,” she gives her a smile that hopefully is seen as comforting. “But, honestly? It’s not the quitting your job part that makes vault hunters brave, it’s their will to keep going even after something terrible happened. Shit, what’s the word for it? Oh, yeah – _perseverance_.”

 

The song on the radio fills the silence as Orihime mulls over her words.

 

“Makes sense,” she says and keeps quiet for so long, Nel thinks the conversation is over. Except Orihime gulps, twitches her fingers on the steering wheel. “I had – _have_ – a friend who started as a vault hunter really early.”

 

Nel doesn’t comment, doesn’t interrupt, though she pulls up one leg to rest her chin on her knee, giving all of her attention to Orihime’s story.

 

“And I do mean _really_ early, you know?” she seems to be rambling, but Nel can’t find it in herself to mind it. “She’s three years older than me, so when I was ten she had already found a group of vault hunters that didn’t seem to care about her age – well, most of them anyway – and accepted her as one of them. She started traveling with them, and I only saw her once or twice after she has been a couple months away, and usually it was on the Kurosaki’s clinic.”

 

She stops, apparently hesitating on how to continue. Or maybe she’s only bidding time to prevent her tears from falling down. Nel’s not sure, and doesn’t think it would do any good if she pointed it out, so she waits, stays still and quiet until her friend is ready to continue.

 

“Her, uh, teammates – I guess – always told me how great she was, how her skills were as good as the others, how soon she would not only catch up but also surpass them,” there’s a small smile on her face; eyes on the road but mind in the past. “The stories she told me were amazing, and every time she got ready to go out again, I’d tell myself ‘next time I’ll join you’, but I was never strong enough for that.”

 

The last comment makes Nel frown, showing her disagreement with the statement very clearly. She still waits for Orihime to continue, doesn’t dare to interrupt.

 

“She didn’t have a long career as a vault hunter, though, so I never got to join her,” her sad smile and the glimmer on the corner of her eyes tell Nel she probably shouldn’t ask what happened – not that she haven’t figured it out by herself, anyway.

 

It has always been too dangerous, the life of a vault hunter.

 

**LV.**

“MY SON! IT’S BEEN SO LONG! I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER CALL,” Ichigo cringes, turns the volume of his ECHO down so he doesn’t have to risk losing his hearing this soon in life. “I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK YOU FORGOT ABOUT YOUR DAD HERE, YOU KNOW!”

 

As far as volume goes, not even on the lowest set – that isn’t the goddamn mute he so much wants to press, already regretting his decision to call his family this early in the morning – can make his dad’s loud crying sound quieter.

 

“It has barely been a week, old man,” he huffs, crosses his arms and tries not to think of how much he’s missed them. He doesn’t need his voice cracking in the middle of the conversation. “Well, how is everyone doing?”

 

“MY SON IS SO CRUEL,” his dad cries again. At Ichigo’s heavy sigh, he tones down his theatrics. “Okay, I’ll stop. Apart from the fact everyone around here misses you three, everything is pretty much the same. Same old, same old.”

 

“That’s good to hear,” he smiles, the corner of his mouth stretching wide effortlessly. “We miss you guys too.”

 

“Such comforting words,” Isshin starts, then squawks. Ichigo can only assume either Karin or Yuzu grabbed him by the ear and is now fighting over the control of the ECHO.

 

“Ichi-nii!” Yuzu’s voice fills the static, and his smile gets even bigger. “How’s everything? Are you eating enough? Sleeping well? Taking care of yourself properly? Oh! And I hope you’re having lots of fun out there!”

 

He laughs at the assault of questions, tries to answer them all. “Everything is fine, it’s all pretty hectic, but in a good way – keeps us on our toes and all. I’ve been doing all of these things, Yuzu, don’t worry, and even if I wasn’t, you know Inoue and Chad would scold me about it.”

 

He gets a light chuckle for that. Closing his eyes for a bit, he enjoys the sunrays on his skin, and decides he should come and sit on the top of the van more often.

 

“That’s so good!” she claps her hands, excitedly. Then, quieter, she says, “Please take care, okay? Not only on the sleeping and eating thing, just – make sure you can come back to us.”

 

Ichigo’s eyes soften, and he feels his heart constrict once, almost painfully.

 

“I promise I will, don’t worry,” he says, his voice as quiet as he can make.

 

“Okay, good,” Yuzu says with such certain finality that reminds Ichigo of their mom. After a couple seconds, her voice brightens again. “Can you bring us a present from somewhere? I don’t have a specific town in mind, but whatever makes you remember about me and Karin would be nice.”

 

Ichigo nods, momentarily forgetting they’re not seeing each other. “Yeah, I’m going to find you two a really cool gift.”

 

In the background, he can hear their dad’s exclamation to be included on the gift-giving and, knowing his old man, he’s pulling out the biggest pout he can manage. He snorts, not impressed at all with Isshin’s antics.

 

“Tell dad I’ll get him something too,” he says. “Is Karin home?”

 

“No,” Yuzu says, and their dad’s background noise stops. “She’s at a friend’s. Not sure when she’ll come back, sorry.”

 

“It’s okay, I didn’t even warn you guys I was going to call, there’s no reason for me to complain that not everyone is there.”

 

Yuzu laughs, and launches on a story of how she managed to save two of the rebels by herself the other day. After that, she’s still has plenty of anecdotes about things that happened in the clinic, and how she was getting better at the job, her efficiency has gotten better according to the distant screams of their dad.

 

It makes Ichigo’s chest swell with pride.

 

**LVI.**

“Are we getting anywhere near that _friend_ of yours?” Kurosaki asks after they find a small town on the way to Doctor Dickhead’s house – in truth, the man himself calls it his research facility, but in all the months he and Nel spent there he’s never seen the guy leave the place to go to his own home and sleep, so he counts the place as both.

 

“Probably one or two more days and we’ll get there,” Nel answers; Grimmjow notices the almost carefree smile on her face as they enter the town.

 

It’s in no way alike Lynchwood – he doubts any other town in Pandora would be as organized and efficient on their resources use as Harribel’s town – though it’s still decent enough to spend the night on a motel, with proper beds and a good, long shower.

 

They do need those things to keep from growing irritated with each other, and after the disaster that was last time when they found houses away from any kind of bigger civilization they refuse to stop in similar places, going to the more populated areas. Grimmjow thinks it’s not particularly wise for them to stay in certain places, but he’s also a big fan of feeling clean and well-rested, so he can endure sneaking in less traveled areas as precaution. Someone noticing them would hinder their plans almost immediately.

 

“ _Probably_?” Kurosaki’s tone is more curious than indignant about the time it will take them to get there.

 

“Depends on the road and whether or not we’ll have to stop,” she says, grabbing one key of the two the receptionist gave her and tossing the other one to Grimmjow. “Oh, there’s also how many times we would have to stop.”

 

Grimmjow inspects the key, looking for the number.

 

“Orihime and I will share a bedroom while you guys share the other, okay?” Nel asks and they all promptly nod in response. “Alright. It’s still in the middle of the afternoon, so I guess we could do some sightseeing. What do you guys think?”

 

“Sounds nice,” Orihime smiles, twines her fingers together. Chad nods.

 

“Sure,” Grimmjow mutters, not really caring too much on how they’ll spend their afternoon and evening.

 

Kurosaki grins and follows Nel outside; doesn’t take long for the other three to do the same.

 

**LVII.**

When there’s not much to do in town the people of Pandora tend to meet in the same establishment, whether they’re aware of it or not – the bar.

 

Chad knows that because he knows basically everyone in Sanctuary thanks to his job as a bartender, which is why he can recognize when there’s a new face in their home. He’s sure it’s the same for whatever kind of person that works here, who can immediately spot out someone from out of town in the midst of the regulars.

 

It’s not too crowded, but it’s also only the beginning of the evening, so he’s sure more people will come in as the hours pass.

 

The atmosphere in the place is a lot friendlier than Dordoni’s, he notices. He’s thankful, doesn’t know how many more fights they’ll have to get in during their travel but if they can avoid some, he’ll take it without a second thought.

 

“What’s the guy we’re going to meet like?” Orihime asks, eyes shining with curiosity.

 

Nelliel and Grimmjow exchange a look with each other, yet their reactions to the question are different. Grimmjow’s face immediately shuts off, a grimace featuring on his face as he crosses his arms and huffs; Nelliel lights up, more out of amusement for Grimmjow’s reaction than for whatever she thinks of the doctor.

 

“He’s an asshole and we wouldn’t even consider meeting up with him again if he didn’t know a fucking lot about Szayel,” Grimmjow practically spits out, and Chad notices how tense his jaw looks.

 

“Jeez, Grimm, tell us how you really feel,” Nelliel teases, but still pats him on the shoulder in reassurance. “He’s right, by the way. Kurotsuchi is, well, an unapologetic bastard. But there’s no one else we know that has as much information on Szayel as he does –”

 

“– Because he’s a competitive _freak_ –” Grimmjow’s interruption grants him an elbow to the ribs.

 

“Because their subjects of study are very similar,” she finishes, refuses to acknowledge Grimmjow’s annoyed stare.

 

“Oh, like it couldn’t be because of both of these things,” Grimmjow rolls his eyes, raises one eyebrow.

 

“If he’s that much of a dick,” Ichigo starts, draws their attention to him. “Why would he help us with the information stuff?”

 

“He’s probably going to order us to do a few easy tasks before he gives us what we want,” Nelliel sounds a little bit annoyed, as if reliving a memory.

 

“’ _Probably’_ , she says,” Grimmjow snorts, takes a sip of his beer. “As if that isn’t exactly what he’ll do.”

 

“What kind of tasks?” Chad asks, but he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.

 

“Remember the varkid thing?” Grimmjow scowls, puts one elbow on the table and rests his head on his hand. “That’s his idea of an easy, completely doable task. It’s like the fucking asshole doesn’t know varkids are goddamn _vicious_ even in their larval stage, and will attack you on sight, like it doesn’t fucking matter if you only have peaceful intentions.”

 

“Maybe they just didn’t like your ugly mug,” Nelliel quips, laughing when Grimmjow splutters and turns to her, offended. “I’m just joking. But yeah, that’s the kind of stuff Kurotsuchi had us do for, uh…”

 

“Almost five months,” Grimmjow supplies, eyes seemingly distant. He snaps out of it, though, and looks at the inquisitive faces. “Yeah, I counted the days; anyone got a problem with that?”

 

“No, it’s just,” Ichigo looks at Grimmjow, impressed. “What were you two doing there for this long?”

 

“Can’t really go anywhere when you’re broke and in need of food and a place to sleep,” Grimmjow states, not sounding or looking angry at all, rather simply disinterested on the subject already – not that Chad blames him.

 

“Well,” Orihime clasps her hands together. “If he’s the only one we can ask help to about this, then there’s not much else we can do about it, right?”

 

Reluctantly, Grimmjow nods. “Yeah, I know,” he pauses to take another sip “Doesn’t mean I won’t talk shit about the guy as much as I can.”

 

Ichigo snorts and when Chad looks at him, he can see sparkles of amusement in his friend’s eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is anyone even still interested in this?

**LVIII.**

Sometimes, the world doesn’t care if you want to take a break and relax, because it wants entertainment, and apparently you’re it in some cases.

 

Nel walks to the stools, ready to order another drink, when a fistfight breaks out right next to her, close enough she can feel the air of a few blows right on her face. She scoffs, ignores the commotion and quickly returns to her seat.

 

“Can’t catch a break, huh,” Grimmjow mutters, though he’s finding the scene much more amusing than she is. “The hell are they even fighting about, I wonder.”

 

They all turn to watch the fight – a tall, lean but muscular guy with tattoos practically everywhere, even above his eyebrows, and red hair laughs as he dodges the other man’s attacks with a mesmerizing ease. The other man is shorter, strangely built like some psychos she had the displeasure of seeing up close and personal during fights.

 

She doesn’t know what triggered the fight, but there’s no way she can tear her eyes away from it, not when red hair’s laugh demands your attention, not when he looks like he’s having fun, like it’s a play fight, while his opponent is taking it as seriously as the fight is, with punches and kicks and dirty tricks exchanged.

 

Red hair taunts, laughs and moves his hands in a ‘come on’ motion, and Nel swears the other guy snarls like a ferocious animal – and even then red hair doesn’t seem to care. For a brief moment she questions his sanity.

 

Then she remembers that’s the norm in Pandora.

 

“Are they taking bets?” Orihime’s mildly scandalized voice snaps her out of the fight hypnosis and she turns to look at where her friend has pointed.

 

There are, indeed, people taking bets on who will be the winner. Sighing, she turns back to the fight and moves a hand dismissively; not surprising at all that someone turned a bar fight into an even more interesting type of entertainment, except this one is terrible, bound to end in more fight because no one seems to have the notion that when you bet on the wrong guy, the money won’t come back to them.

 

Grimmjow whistles, and Nel agrees – red hair managed to escape a stool to the top of his head by only a few millimeters, and recovers quickly, punching the guy in his guts. Even though he’s been losing since the beginning, short guy still has courage enough to face his opponent, no matter how uneven their fighting skills are.

 

As Nel watches red hair, enthralled by his fighting moves, short guy signals someone from the crowd, someone who has red hair’s back to them. After that, all she notices is the signaled person stalking towards red hair, a gun badly concealed behind the coat – which isn’t a problem, in the end, since it’s soon out of there and aimed at red hair.

 

She doesn’t think, doesn’t need to, not when it’s already an automatic response to these kind of situations. The man with the weapon starts floating, his feet a few centimeters above the floor, and while normal men would freak out by now, he simply shrugs it off by pulling the trigger anyway, Nel’s powers not being strong enough to prevent that.

 

She curses, looks away because even if it’s common for bar fights end a certain way, it doesn’t mean she’s fine with what’s practically public execution.

 

Except the bullet never hits its target; red hair doesn’t fall on the floor, dead; the short cheating bastard doesn’t look so smug anymore – and that she loves, _that fucking piece of shit, coward who doesn’t even know how to fight for himself having his plan backfire in such spectacular way_.

 

When Nel finds the bullet – and it doesn’t take long, not the way she thought – there’s ice encapsulating it. She frowns, searching on her memory for any other time in her life where she’s seen or heard about frozen bullets. Fire, electric or corrosive bullets? Sure, even slagged ones she knows are a thing that exists.

 

Frozen bullets, though.

 

She gets up, intent on inspecting it further. It doesn’t look like a practical elemental bullet at all, not when it fails to do its job in this miserable way. Taking the guy out of his phaselock, Nel looks up to ask him why did he ever think that type of ammo was effective when she realizes there’s another person standing with them now, a short woman with small snowballs floating around her hands and gun.

 

The woman looks pissed, and thankfully it’s all directed at the guy Nel just let out. It’s a terrifyingly cold stare, one that makes her feel shivers down her spine. Speechless and without a clue on how to react, she watches the small woman shoot the guy on the stomach before turning to red hair and check on him.

 

“Damn, Rukia, I said I’m fine,” red hair admonishes, but holds his hands up in surrender when Rukia punches him on the chest.

 

“You complete _idiot_ ,” she comes close to growling, but then seems to remember they’re not alone and regains her composure. “Be more aware of your surroundings or next time you’ll end up dead.”

 

Red hair doesn’t seem to have a response to that; he simply scratches the back of his head and gives a weak laugh. Rukia rolls her eyes and finally notices Nel’s existence.

 

“I don’t know why you did it, but thank you,” Rukia bows at her and Nel blushes slightly, not sure what is the proper conduct to be followed in a situation like that. “Your powers helped me stop that bullet from getting inside my imprudent friend here.”

 

“Oi, come on, Rukia!” he objects, staring at her with his hands on his hips. “Don’t badmouth me like that in front of strangers, please.”

 

“Don’t forget to stay aware of the things happening around you then,” she stares back, crossing her arms. “Are you that eager to die on me?”

 

“What?” he splutters. “Of course not! Why would even think that?”

 

“Um,” Nel says, considering how impolite would it be if she just left the two arguing while she sat back with her friends.

 

“Oh, my apologies,” Rukia blushes, embarrassed by the scene they’re causing. “I’m Rukia, this airhead here is Renji. Thanks for your help.”

 

“Um, hi,” Nel waves, still not sure on what to do. “I’m Nelliel and, uh, it’s no problem, really.”

 

“No, what you did was great,” Renji grins. “Not many people would’ve done the same.”

 

“It’s okay,” she mutters, takes a step back, back to her friends.

 

“Oh, is it okay if we buy you a thank you drink?” he asks, tilts his head to the side and the grin fades a bit, uncertain of the answer to the offer.

 

Nel doesn’t understand why, but her guts are telling her these two better join the group. She doesn’t even know whether they’re vault hunters or not but Rukia and Renji are extremely well-skilled, and her group is in desperate need of that – Ichigo, Chad and Orihime are getting there, but it never hurts to have more people who know what they’re doing when you’re in the middle of a gunfight.

 

“I wouldn’t mind a free drink,” she points back at her table. “That is, only if you two don’t mind sitting with me and my friends.”

 

“Not at all,” Rukia answers, pushes Renji in the direction of the bar. “He’ll get something and we can wait with them.”

 

Nel laughs. “Sure.”

 

**LIX.**

 

Nel introduces them to the prettiest woman Orihime has ever seen. She’s small and radiant, and holds herself in a regal manner, like a princess. She’s got a small smile on her face as she greets them, and her voice is so, _so_ sweet; Orihime is sure she could listen to her talk all day long, no matter what the subject is.

 

Orihime is almost sure she’s staring, and wonders if by the heat of her face she’s blushing. Maybe she could pass it off as being slightly tipsy – everyone has been drinking for a while now, and it’s not like they’re sober enough to realize she isn’t drunk to the point of blushing.

 

“Making new friends?” Jaegerjaquez-san takes a quick look at Rukia before going back to his beer, downing it in one go before asking – practically shouting – for another one.

 

Since they started this vault hunting thing, she’s never seen him this, well, this _open_. She likes that he’s capable of being so, and wishes they’ll get to see more of that, without the drunken part, preferably.

 

“Never enough of those,” Nel quips and shoves him to make space for both her and Rukia. Ignoring Jaegerjaquez-san’s protests, she continues, attention already back to the newest addition to the table. “So, you two from around here?”

 

Rukia shakes her head. “No, just passing by,” she gives them an once-over, smiling. “I assume it’s the same for you?”

 

“Yeah,” Kurosaki-kun signals a waiter, orders another drink. “Your friend is really strong, by the way.”

 

“Well, I’d rather Renji acted smarter,” Rukia grins, raises her voice so Renji can hear her teasing as he walks towards them.

 

Renji hands one drink to Nel and another to Rukia, then puts one hand on his chest as he sits down. “Why would you wound me like that? I thought you were my friend.”

 

She rolls her eyes and punches him on the shoulder, not too light but not too strong either, and laughs.

 

“You _did_ have your back completely exposed to your enemy,” Jaegerjaquez-san quips; Orihime sees a grin spreading on his face – not the holier-than-thou kind, but the amused one – as he rests his chin on his hand. “That’s the same thing as yelling for someone to kill you.”

 

“He is right,” Rukia takes a sip of her beverage. “You could’ve been easily shot by anyone that stood behind you because of your damn one-track mind.”

 

“Eh, everything worked out at the end,” Renji shrugs, not even close to being as worried as his friend, probably thanks to all the alcohol he consumed since – well, Orihime doesn’t know when these two got here, nor when he started drinking. “That’s what counts, right? We’re alive _and_ drinking, plus we met some pretty cool people. I’d count that as a win.”

 

“He’s not completely wrong,” Kurosaki-kun chimes in, gives the man a reassuring smile and receives a huge grin in return. He points at Rukia. “You and Nel saved him and that’s what matters the most here, I think.”

 

“See? This guy here understands!” Renji laughs, throws an arm over Kurosaki-kun’s shoulder and brings him close, shaking them both from left to right. Then, he stops, cheeks flushed from the drinks and the fight. “What’s your name again?”

 

“Ichigo,” he huffs out, pushing his hand against Renji’s ribs in attempt to free himself. Renji’s lock on him seemed extremely tight for someone that drunk, and Orihime wonders how strong the man is when sober. “But your friend does have a point; you can’t keep on letting enemies find your weak spot.”

 

Renji gasps and pulls Kurosaki-kun away, looking betrayed.

 

“Aw, man, come on! I need at least one person on my side!” he lets his head drop on the table, startling the people sitting on the table next to them. Rukia rolls her eyes.

 

“ _And_ you’re done with the drinks for tonight,” she takes the cup from his grasp, setting it next to hers. Orihime giggles, hand covering her mouth in hopes it goes unnoticed, yet Rukia does, looks at her in a way Orihime can’t describe properly and then smiles at her.

 

Suddenly it’s hard for her to breathe.

 

**LX.**

 

The night passes quicker than Ichigo expects, and he’s sure a hangover will fall upon most of them in the morning – not that present drunk him minds, it is a future sober him problem after all.

 

It’s still a few more hours until the bar closes, though, so he can take that time to start drinking water, hoping for a less annoying hangover headache. He looks at Chad, sitting at his side, the only sober one on their group.

 

“Smart bastard,” his voice comes out muffled, with his arms crossed on the table and head resting on them.

 

Chad smiles – he knows Ichigo is talking to him, and knows why he said it.

 

“You’ll survive,” he mutters, pats Ichigo on the back and somehow manages to produce another glass of water for him.

 

“Oh shit,” Ichigo lifts his head up slightly, a huge grin on his face when he notices what Chad is handing him. “You’re the best, Chad, seriously. You’re a fucking hero.”

 

He can’t see it because of the bangs, but he knows Chad has one eyebrow raised in amusement.

 

Slouching on the other side of the table, Grimmjow snorts. Ichigo snaps his head to stare at the man, sure Grimmjow is mocking him. What he sees is the man not even paying attention to his and Chad’s exchange, focused on watching Nel and Renji dance.

 

Well, the way they dance looks more like a clumsy attempt to hop around and throw their heads up and down, not worrying about matching the music. Everyone around them has either forgotten about the fight that happened earlier or it’s a common thing that happens in this town, two-on-one fights.

 

Ichigo laughs quietly as Renji accidentally bumps into a guy’s back, and when he turns back, all huffing and puffing and ready to punch, Ichigo perks up, cocks his head and wonders whether or not it’s the same guy from earlier. The guy recognizes Renji and pales, and yes, it’s the same douchebag from earlier, clearly not smart enough to run away with his tail between his legs when he should have.

 

He holds his breath, waiting for another brawl to start, but Renji just slaps the guy’s shoulder and heads the other way, back to Nel for their weird definition of dance. Rukia huffs and he startles, too focused on the guy visibly relaxing to notice her and Inoue coming back from the bathroom.

 

“Renji didn’t recognize that asshole at all, right?” he takes a sip of the water, eyes following the guy until he’s in a fittingly distance from the hopping drunks.

 

“He probably wouldn’t even if he was sober,” Rukia watches as Renji almost trip on his own foot and shakes her head.

 

“So he was drunk fighting?” Ichigo raises his eyebrows, turning his attention from Nel cackling at Renji’s clumsiness to Rukia.

 

“Hmm,” she tilts her head, considering. “I’d say it’s more like he saw it more as a child’s play.”

 

“Sounds reckless,” Grimmjow frowns, already bored with the sight in front of them.

 

Rukia shrugs. “His opponent wasn’t that strong anyway,” then, she mutters. “Still should’ve paid more attention.”

 

Grimmjow nods solemnly.

 

“Where are you guys staying?” Ichigo asks.

 

“There’s only the one motel.”

 

“Oh,” Ichigo scratches the back of his head, smiles sheepishly. “This place really doesn’t have anything, huh.”

 

“Well, no shit,” Grimmjow turns his head towards Ichigo, one eyebrow raised in – well, not amusement, at least not genuine, but Ichigo is too drunk to come up with the right word to use. “There’s nothing here that Hyperion could take advantage of or just plain steal. Not worth coming here and upgrading the place for lower staff to work here.”

 

Rukia narrows her eyes slightly, staring him up and down. Grimmjow either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, much more interested on calling the waiter for more water.

 

“Fuck,” Grimmjow chuckles, shakes his head at the sight of Nel trying to convince Renji and a random person to do a tricky set of movements. “Is someone going to get them out of there any time soon? Bar is almost closing and we should have gone back to the motel hours ago. Reaching Kurotsuchi will still take some time.”

 

Rukia’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes widen. “You know Kurotsuchi?”

 

“Uh,” Grimmjow frowns, slightly taken aback by her reaction. “Yeah, I know him. What about the jackass?”

 

“Oh, Renji and I are heading to his lab too,” she smirks. “Jackass? That’s really nice of you to call him that.”

 

“Nice?” Ichigo frowns. “How is that nice?”

 

“Well,” she starts, finishes her glass before continuing. “Personally I would’ve gone with a fucking dickbag.”

 

Ichigo almost spits his water, tries to not laugh so loud, something that Grimmjow doesn’t seem to care much about. He’s clutching his sides and there are a few tears at the corners of his eyes, cackling so loud a couple of people on the table next to theirs stare with concern.

 

Ichigo finds that he likes the sound of Grimmjow’s laugh a lot, actually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long, i have been pretty forgetful lately D:

**Author's Note:**

> my 1st languague isn't english, so if u see any mistakes please tell me!!


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